Furry's Theorem, Part 1: Why an Odd Number of Photons Can't Come From Nothing
2026-07-25
A path-integral and diagrammatic proof that any correlation function of an odd number of photon fields vanishes exactly â the photon is C-odd, the vacuum is C-even, and QED conserves C â plus the three places the proof most often goes wrong.
2235 words
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11 minutes
Furry's Theorem, Part 2: What It Buys You
2026-07-25
Spending Furry's theorem: no photon tadpole, no three-photon vertex, why EulerâHeisenberg has only even powers of F, whole classes of Feynman diagrams deleted for free, why light doesn't scatter off light until fourth order, and where the theorem breaks near a magnetar.
1118 words
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6 minutes
Self-Energy, 1PI Diagrams, and the Dyson Resummation
2026-05-02
How perturbation theory actually computes the field strength renormalization Z and the shift from bare mass mâ to physical mass m, by resumming all 1PI insertions into the full propagator i/(pÂČ â mâÂČ â MÂČ(pÂČ)).
1321 words
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7 minutes
Why Renormalization Is Needed: The KĂ€llĂ©nâLehmann Spectral Representation
2026-05-01
A non-perturbative derivation showing that the analytic structure of the interacting two-point function forces field strength renormalization Z and a physical mass m â mâ â long before any loops or infinities appear.
1716 words
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9 minutes
Starting MSc Physics at Heidelberg â What We Wish We Knew Earlier
2026-04-15
A practical companion to a video I made in collaboration with STARGAZER on beginning the MSc Physics program at Heidelberg University â covering courses, research groups, admin, and life in the city.
2517 words
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13 minutes
Lie Groups and Lie Algebras, Part IV: The Poincaré Group and the Classification of Particles
2026-04-06
Exploring the Poincaré group, its Casimir operators, and Wigner's classification of elementary particles by mass and spin/helicity.
2774 words
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14 minutes
Lie Groups and Lie Algebras, Part III: Spinors, Fields, and the Representations That Matter
2026-04-05
Decomposing the Lorentz algebra into su(2) â su(2), classifying representations by (j+, j-), and understanding Weyl, Dirac, and Majorana spinors in relativistic field theory.
2236 words
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11 minutes
Lie Groups and Lie Algebras, Part II: The Lorentz Group
2026-04-04
Exploring the Lorentz group O(3,1), its disconnected components, its defining invariant metric, and its fundamental representations in relativistic physics.
2801 words
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14 minutes