Talk:Feynman checkerboard

I have added some history and context that is familiar to me, but I think the Chessboard model has been quietly worked on by many people, so I am sure the current references could be expanded to gather a more complete picture. I disagree with the classification that the importance of the model is low. The model is not very well known and is not immediately useful for calculation. However it is unique in its potential to look in detail at the origin of the Dirac equation. Hontologicus (talk) 23:37, 12 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Excellent additions, these greatly improve the article. I think we can remove the stub status by now. The classification importance = low is subjective, but perhaps not too far off as there is no known 3+1D analog to this elegant 1+1D model. 77.251.148.13 (talk) 13:27, 13 September 2008 (UTC)
 * OK thanks! I hope the additions will encourage interested parties to explore the model and add references to additional work. Hontologicus (talk) 15:57, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

I think this article should mention that the reason for the -i factor is that the "reflection" of the motion of the particle corresponds to a rotation by pi and, since the fermion has spin 1/2, this results in a pi/2 rotation of the wave function phase. Also relevant is the "zig-zag" picture of the fermion as a superposition of a left handed and a right handed Weyl spinor (both propagating at the speed of light), with the coupling constant proportional to the rest mass, and only the left handed component participating in the weak interaction. Spinorkit (talk) 22:51, 27 June 2015 (UTC)