pears Posted August 22, 2013 Share Posted August 22, 2013 If you had to describe the universe in terms of its fundamental components what would you say they are? As someone with a love of science but no formal education beyond GCSE and pop science books, I would hazard: spacetime forces energy/matter Does that sound right? What would your list be? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ajb Posted August 22, 2013 Share Posted August 22, 2013 Observables are the basic "things" that "exist". Though we may get in knots with that word, "exists". The things you list are indeed some fundamental concepts needed in modern physics. Much of modern physics is formulated in terms of fields, which can informally be thought of as attachements of "values" to each point on space-time. This is the modern way to thinking in both classical and quantum physics. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pears Posted August 23, 2013 Author Share Posted August 23, 2013 (edited) Thanks AJB - very interesting links - although now my head is spinning somewhat So I guess my list should be revised to spacetime fields matter/observables What are the fundamental fields? Apologies for my noobish questions. I think I have a lot of reading up to do Edited August 23, 2013 by pears Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ajb Posted August 23, 2013 Share Posted August 23, 2013 What are the fundamental fields? In the standard model each particle has an associated field. See the chart below. The particle associated with the electromagnetic field is the photon. Associated with an electron is the electron field. The only thing missing here is the gravitational field, which has resisted our attempts to apply the rules of quantum theory to it. So the basic fields as we understand them today are all the fields of the standard model plus the gravitational field. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pears Posted August 23, 2013 Author Share Posted August 23, 2013 Thanks AJB - very helpful and interesting I will go forth and digest, hopefully! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Create an account or sign in to comment
You need to be a member in order to leave a comment
Create an account
Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!
Register a new accountSign in
Already have an account? Sign in here.
Sign In Now