- #106
atyy
Science Advisor
- 15,169
- 3,379
Ken G said:Right, exactly, they are indeed very closely related. So we need an approach to both that resolves the same issues. But no one talks about spooky action at a distance when they say the ground state of an atom has higher energy levels, or when they talk about white dwarfs. No one says that an excited electron in an atom can only drop down to unoccupied states because "nonlocal influences" from the other electrons collapse its state. I think that's because it sounds local to say you cannot sit in a chair if someone else is already there, but that's not why the PEP works, it works because the exchange antisymmetry is holistic. The actual reason an electron cannot go into an occupied state is not because another electron is already there, that very language suggests electrons have their own identities-- it can't do it expressly because it does not have its own identity, the system is holistic.
Xiao-Gang Wen does apply the term "nonlocal" to fermions on p144: "Fermions are weird because they are non-local objects".
https://www.amazon.com/dp/019922725X/?tag=pfamazon01-20
Last edited by a moderator: