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The Reference Frame: Wick rotation (10420 words) |
 | Because I believe that most of this criticism is unfair and the Wick rotation is a useful, and in many cases essential mathematical tool to calculate the physical predictions of a quantum theory, let me dedicate a special article to this issue. |
 | The Wick rotation is a calculational trick in quantum theory in which we assume that the energy or the time are pure imaginary. |
 | Also, even if you assumed that the Wick rotation seems to be a new added element to the structure and definition of quantum field theory, it's completely fine that it is so because the predictions of the (correct) theories, even those that rely on the Wick rotation, have been experimentally tested. |
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Wick rotation - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (257 words) |
 | In physics, Wick rotation is a method of finding a solution to a problem in Minkowski space from a solution to a related problem in Euclidean space, by analytic continuation. |
 | Wick rotation connects quantum mechanics to statistical mechanics in a surprising way. |
 | It is called a rotation because when we represent complex numbers as a plane, the multiplication of a complex number by i is equivalent to rotating the vector representing that number by an angle of π / 2. |