The wikipedia page "Force Carrier" says:
The electromagnetic force can be described by the exchange of virtual photons.
The virtual photon thing baffles me a little. I get that virtual particles are supposed to be short lived, but as photons live for zero units of proper time I can't see how their lifetime can be used to distinguish between virtual and non-virtual.
Another idea I had was that virtual photons are only those associated with the electromagnetic field, non-virtual ones are not. But in this case, I could not see what was wrong with this: If I have a photon detecting instrument it is just detecting the force carrying particles of the electromagnetic interactions between it and the thing I am using it to observe? (even if that thing is a long way away)
Are virtual photons just photons that you don't observe? Or, is there some kind of photon that is not connected with the electromagnetic field? Or something else? Or perhaps there is no concrete distinction to be made?
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