Quantum electrodynamics (QED)
Electrodinámica cuántica renormalizada
- Date
- 1947-1949 · confidence high
- Place
- Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, United States
- Credited to
- Richard Feynman; Julian Schwinger; Sin-Itiro Tomonaga; Freeman Dyson
- People
- 👤 Paul Dirac1902–1984
- Field
- Cosmos & Earth
What was discovered
A quantum, relativistic theory of the interaction between light and matter in which infinities are absorbed through renormalisation; Feynman diagrams make it calculable. It predicts the electron's magnetic moment to twelve decimal places: the most precise theory in history.
Tomonaga developed his formulation in Tokyo, isolated during the war (1943); Dyson demonstrated the equivalence of the three approaches. 1965 Nobel Prize without Dyson.
What it led to
- Standard model and gauge theories
- Feynman diagrams as a universal language
- Quantum field theory in condensed matter
- Precision physics
Built on
- Dirac equation and the prediction of antimatter1928
- Lamb shift and anomalous magnetic moment of the electron1947
- Heisenberg, Pauli and Jordan's work in the 1930s
- Feynman's path integrals (1942)
Made possible
- Casimir effect1948
- Non-abelian gauge theories (Yang-Mills)1954
- Renormalization group and critical phenomena1971-1972
- Precision measurement of the muon magnetic moment (g-2)2021-2025
- Calculation of accelerator processes
- quantum optics and lasers (theoretical foundation)