" Thus the point is that a physical particle-a renormalized particle-involves (1) a bare particle and (2) a huge tangle of virtual particles, inextricably wound together in a recursive mess. Every real particle's existence therefore involves the existence of infinitely many other particles, contained in a virtual "cloud" which surrounds it as it propagates. And each of the virtual particles in the cloud, of course, also drags along its own virtual cloud, and so on ad infinitum. "

― Douglas R. Hofstadter , Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid