First collisions at the LHC with unprecedented Energy! (Ask a particle physisicist)

[JuliaL]

So again, you wonder whether or how we can talk about particles without knowing what particles actually are.

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As I have alluded to earlier, I don't think this is necessarily in the realm of science - but - I also believe that we regularly leave the realm of science when we talk about nature. This is a deep philosophy of science question and I am no philosopher of science, so I can only offer you a half baked cake of my own making. I think the question what particles really are, might possibly not be a valid question. My impression is that we can't help but talk about the objects and goings on in the world in terms of our theories about these objects, and that only in the framework of a theory a multitude of phenomena can be unified into a single object. What is a cup of coffee really? Is it still the same cup if you rotate it 180° and why? In order to talk about *the cup*, we have to relate a multitude of phenomena in different channels, touch, sight, and its reaction to touch, and a theory of rigid  rotations in space and how they form equivalence classes between objects, all have to relate these things in a theoretical construct you call *the cup*. I don't think particle physics is all that different, except that quantum weirdness makes it harder to express the state of an object in everyday language.

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I see us chasing finer and finer structure at higher and higher energies without ever seeing an end.
It used to be that a mustard seed was the smallest thing.  
Now it's some colored, flavored, charmed thing with a made-up name you tell me actually exists.
I think you know what ultimate particle reality is and are keeping the rest of us ignorant to scam more grant money.

Concerning the second question, I have wondered that myself. The interpretation of forces as particle exchange is an intuition that comes out of the mathematical construction of Feynman diagrams. It is real work to try and map this question (how do the particles that are exchanged decide to get flying, do they see their goal?) to the maths of the derivation of feynman diagrams. My preliminary answer is thusly: Particles send off virtual particles all the time in this picture. If another is in sight, it gets caught. But this does not explain why particles don't "lose " energy via virtual particles all the time.

I thought (you said in post #127) that virtual particles didn't carry enough energy to exist.  Are you saying they could still take a little away from the real ones?  
Less than a quantum?  Can they do that?
What means "in sight?"  Is it strictly location, location, location?  It can't be what's normally thought of as sight by us big folks.

But thanks again for translating the math model to more everyday concepts.
When things get really really small they get really really weird.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Let%27s_Get_Small

I guess that at that scale, what happens in the transitions might be unknowable.
I just can't shake the idea that there has to be a process whereby something is emitted for there to be an emission.

Reality, what a concept.
BTW, do the philosophers of science actually understand what you do? Or are they just faking it?