Weizsäcker-Williams method

The Weizsäcker-Williams method is a way physicists simplify the calculation of how high-energy charged particles, like electrons or protons, interact with other particles or fields. Instead of analyzing the complex electromagnetic forces directly, this approach treats the particle's electromagnetic field as if it were a cloud of many tiny, real photons (light particles). By doing so, scientists can predict the likelihood of various interactions, such as scattering or particle production, more easily. Essentially, it replaces a complicated problem with a simpler one involving real photons, providing a practical approximation for understanding particle collisions at very high energies.