🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1992Dec11.152227.1@sscvx1.ssc.gov> draper@sscvx1.ssc.gov writes:
   In article <BCR.92Dec11004605@hfl3sn02.cern.ch>, bcr@cernapo.cern.ch (Bill Riemers) writes:
>   > Like charges exchange more posative momentum photons, while negative charges
>                                    "unlike",right?

No.  Immagine if we throw a ball back in forth in a gravity free environment.  Since
a ball is a real object the absolute momentum exchanges must be posative.  So I throw
the ball and fly backwards.  You then cetch the ball and fly backwards.  Consiquently,
the exchange of a positive momentum object results in a repulsive force.  Like charges
repell, unlike attract.

>  > exchange more negative momentum photons.
>  > 
>   This is extremely interesting! I asked a similar question a while ago, viz.,
>   what information does a photon carry that conveys whether it sprang from a
>   positive or negative charge, and hence tells it whether to attract or repel a
>   charge of unlike or like sign. I got all the proper admonitions about trying to
>   derive a static field result with Feynman diagrams. But you seem to have an
>   insight I'm lacking. Please clarify, expand, explain.

Yes the correct way to solve the problem is to solve the integral.  (I had to
do that once in a course.  Not, too difficult, but I wouldn't call it trivial.)
The point is you solve the integral and in one case you get a net positive momentum
exchanged, in the other a net negative momentum exchanged.  However, the integration
is just totaling momentum exchange by photons.  So it seems reasonable to interpret
the result satistically as I have above.

Obcourse, now we are moving into the follow-up questions.  So my answers are getting
more and more unreliable.  Eventually you'll be better off asking a magic 8 ball.

                                           Bill