When a particle carries a large amount of internal energy, like a massive spinning top, its motion can be split into a fast part and a slow part. The fast part is a jitter that barely affects the big picture. Physicists have developed a method to discard this jitter and keep only the slow, meaningful motion. It's like skimming the foam off boiling soup to see the clear broth underneath.
In new materials, particles behave as if they were massless but with peculiar distortions. Here, this approach reveals unexpected effects. Forces arise that are absent in ordinary electricity, as if a magnet attracted not only iron but also wood. Such forces could show up in tiny electrical signals, and scientists hope to measure them in experiments.
The method builds on the idea of Paul Dirac, who first described the behavior of fast electrons. Now his equations help understand slow processes in heavy particles. It's like navigating your own room using a star map — unexpected, but it works.
A method similar to the one described is used in music compression software: it discards sounds that the human ear can't hear anyway, keeping only the essentials.