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Re: [Phys-L] Particles, Fields or ?




On 2013, May 17, , at 13:05, Bob Sciamanda <treborsci@verizon.net> wrote:

It has been recently pointed out (on this list and elsewhere, eg., http://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1204/1204.4616.pdf)
that Quantum Field Theory (QFT) has dissolved the particle/field question in favor of fields: "There are only fields."

I am hastening to the conclusion that there are not even fields!

The fields of QFT are OPERATORS. The system state is an abstract vector in Hilbert (Fock?) space - not described
by a field - only by a "bra or ket", just a label. The field operators describe INTERACTIONS by which the Hilbert
states evolve.

IMHO all of this is a useful CALCULATIONAL MODEL, and does little or nothing to identify a model for the ontological reality (particle, field, wave or whatever) behind the entity being described. Perhaps there is no useful CONCEPTUAL MODEL to describe ultimate reality in human terms - and perhaps there is really no need for one.

I welcome comments.


Immanuel Kant had called "all knowledge transcendental which is concerned not with objects but with our mode of knowing objects."[32]


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transcendentalism

bc’s comment.