How does the universe “remember” or “know” the momenta of particles? I’m asking because I saw a standing wave animation. When the string is flat, how does the universe remember which way the string is going?
In: Physics
The state of a particle isn’t just position. It’s also momentum, along with a number of other properties. The movement of a particle isn’t just how it’s position is changing over time, it’s an intrinsic property of the particle at any given moment in time. A particle “is” moving at 2 m/s in the same sense that it “is” found at coordinates (4, 3, 7) or “is” an electron.
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