The high school physics course that I teach deals extensively with various fields
(elctric, magnetic, gravtiational etc). I have generalised the idea of fields
for my students as a region of space in which a test object will "experience"
a force. We can then investigate the field strengths for the various fields
as they arise in the course, examining, for example, the introduction of a test
charge into an electric field and finding that the electric field strength =
force/per unit charge.
It is here that I am looking for some insight. Are fields simply useful mental
constructs used to describe the action of a force at a distance or is there
a physical explanation for these interactions between objects? http://australia.edu