I’m still trying to work out this whole thing for myself, so particles are fields?
Sean Carrol is awesome. I would not dare to try to add anything to what he says.
Ah! The particles that make up strawberries are also made of fields. Hence might we determine the exact structure of the field of the strawberry, at the moment in which the strawberry was most perfectly ripe for consumption? This is only important in that it would be nice to taste such a strawberry right now.
However, imagine strawberry fields across rolling plains, as far as the eye can see. And each strawberry in each bush in all of the endless fields, each strawberry is made of particles that are made of fields!
(thank you ladies and gentlemen. brought to you by random word association with “Strawberry Fields Forever”.)
Looks like it’s essentially string theory, or a derivative of it. Vibrating “strings” of energy interacting with each other.
Essentially these fields interact with each other, causing a pull or a push which is stronger the closer they get to each other (interestingly usually using the same formula used to determine the strength of gravity). When two or more of these fields intersect they may interact so strongly as to become entangled. Essentially the two fields are still separate things, but they are held in close proximity to each other. This is the basis for the smallest particle.
Different fields have different properties and different reactions with each other. Some attract each other, some repel each other. If you have the right combination, say, 2 of these smallest particles, each with 2 fields, one attracting and one repelling the corresponding 2 fields in another particle, this can cause a balance, keeping the particles together at a specific distance determined by the strength of the attraction and repulsion without letting them merge. The tiniest particles become a bigger particle and the properties of that bigger particle is different than the properties of either of the two smaller particles making it up.
So, essentially, when you reach your hand out and grab a door knob to turn it the fields making up the particles of your hand and the fields making up the particles of the door knob repel each other, keeping the fields separated by ridiculously tiny amounts. You never actually “touch” the door knob. You just get so close that you can’t tell the difference. But this repulsion can be overcome with enough energy, such as by smashing two particles together at 99.999% the speed of light. The particles don’t actually touch because there are no particles. Instead then the individual fields in each particle get so close to each other individually instead of as a net unit that they interact with each other rather than interacting as a single unit, causing the fields to separate and form new bonds with other newly released fields.
Yeah, it all sounds very complicated and kind of magical, but remember, you, a single living organism, are made up of trillions upon trillions of tiny individual living things which live and die almost completely independently of your own life cycle. You are essentially a colony of interdependent living blocks whose individual lives mean nothing to you. If you think about it, that sounds complicated and magical, but it’s how it is.
Keep in mind I am not a physicist, I just like physics. This is a layman’s explanation of a layman’s understanding of the physics. I may not be exactly right on some of the points and I may be way off on some of them.
I know some people take this to be that “you are the universe” but a few people I asked who actually know this stuff told me the short answer was: no.
I would like to ask a basic question. Fields of what? energies? daffodils?
I don’t know the answer to that one. I guess I always assumed electromagnetic. But then when a beam of light intersects a radio wave at the same time a pulsar shoots a gamma ray our way why aren’t particles raining down on us? Maybe the are, for all I know. But I would think if scientists were able to reproduce this with a machine I’m pretty sure the machine which could loosely be described as a “replicator” would be pretty famous.
@ Widdershin
This is a pretty good lecture on quantum fields.
You shouldn’ta outta posted that. I’m gonna use it for evil. But hey, I now FINALLY understand how Bruce Banner gains 1,500 pounds in seconds when he turns green. Thanks.