{"title":"The magic of Feynman’s QED: from field-less electrodynamics to the Feynman diagrams","authors":"Olivier Darrigol","doi":"10.1140/epjh/e2019-100025-2","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p>\nFor some time, even after the Feynman diagrams and rules were publicly known, the foundations of Feynman’s quantum electrodynamics remained mostly private. Its stupendous efficiency then appeared like magic to most of his competitors. The purpose of this essay is to reveal the hidden contrivances of this magic, in a journey from field-less electrodynamics to the Feynman diagrams.\n</p>","PeriodicalId":791,"journal":{"name":"The European Physical Journal H","volume":"44 4-5","pages":"349 - 369"},"PeriodicalIF":0.8000,"publicationDate":"2019-10-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1140/epjh/e2019-100025-2","citationCount":"4","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"The European Physical Journal H","FirstCategoryId":"4","ListUrlMain":"https://link.springer.com/article/10.1140/epjh/e2019-100025-2","RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"物理与天体物理","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"HISTORY & PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 4
Abstract
For some time, even after the Feynman diagrams and rules were publicly known, the foundations of Feynman’s quantum electrodynamics remained mostly private. Its stupendous efficiency then appeared like magic to most of his competitors. The purpose of this essay is to reveal the hidden contrivances of this magic, in a journey from field-less electrodynamics to the Feynman diagrams.
期刊介绍:
The purpose of this journal is to catalyse, foster, and disseminate an awareness and understanding of the historical development of ideas in contemporary physics, and more generally, ideas about how Nature works.
The scope explicitly includes:
- Contributions addressing the history of physics and of physical ideas and concepts, the interplay of physics and mathematics as well as the natural sciences, and the history and philosophy of sciences, together with discussions of experimental ideas and designs - inasmuch as they clearly relate, and preferably add, to the understanding of modern physics.
- Annotated and/or contextual translations of relevant foreign-language texts.
- Careful characterisations of old and/or abandoned ideas including past mistakes and false leads, thereby helping working physicists to assess how compelling contemporary ideas may turn out to be in future, i.e. with hindsight.