Talk:Pauli exclusion principle

Conceptually, it is simple to understand the correspondence between fermions/matter and bosons/[fields; energy; ??]. It's an important point for this article too, I think - it's one of the most important consequences of the Pauli principle. What's the best way to describe it?

On one hand, describing bosons as "fields" is a little misleading, because fermions are also described as fields in QFT. The reason light is classically thought of as a "field" instead of a particle has as much to do with the fact that the photon is massless (hence long-range, hence classically detectable as a field) as the fact that it is a boson. So the distinction isn't too clear.

On the other hand, describing bosons as "energy" is also misleading, because obviously fermions carry energy just as well as bosons.

Thoughts? CYD

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I changed "fields" to "non-matter".

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There's a hint in Quantum Physics by S. Gasiorowicz that fermions do not require a totally antisymmetric wavefunction if there is sufficient separation. From memory, it said something like: "the reader might expect that if we have one electron on earth and one on the moon, they won't require antisymmetrization... Indeed, even at lattice spacing distances of 5-6 angstroms, antisymmetrization is usually unnecessary".

Unfortunately, the only mathematics presented to support this was a calculation of the amount of overlap in probability densities between distant electrons.

That's as much as I know - I couldn't write an authoritative summary on the matter. If true, it would impact on not only this article, but also identical particles and fermions, and perhaps others.

-- Tim Starling 11 Oct. 2002

I believe he's saying that, under certain circumstances, you can make an approximation of ignoring antisymmetrization. -- CYD

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Maybe... I have the book here now, and I can quote the most suggestive statement:

"The question arises whether we really have to worry about this when we consider a hydrogen atom on earth and another one on the moon. If they are both in the ground state, do they necessarily have to have opposite spin states? What then happens when we consider a third hydrogen atom in its ground state?"

I'll try to find some more authoritative information on this. -- Tim

Okay, CYD is right. Sorry everyone. -- Tim