John McGreevy is Professor of Physics at the University of California, San Diego. He is a theoretical physicist with interests in quantum matter, string theory, and ...

Quantum field theory is notoriously complicated, built from mind-bendingly abstract mathematics. But are the underlying rules of reality really so far from human intuition? Or are physicists just ...

How do you calculate infinite quantum outcomes? Feynman Diagrams. The equations of quantum field theory allow us to calculate the behaviour of subatomic particles by expressing them as vibrations in ...

Quantum field theory marries the ideas of other quantum theories to depict all particles as “excitations” that arise in underlying fields. The British physicist Paul Dirac started the ball rolling in ...

At long last, a unified theory combining gravity with the other fundamental forces—electromagnetism and the strong and weak nuclear forces—is within reach. Bringing gravity into the fold has been the ...

Forbes contributors publish independent expert analyses and insights. The Universe is out there, waiting for you to discover it. If you wanted to answer the question of what's truly fundamental in ...

What is a quantum field and how does it interact with matter? originally appeared on Quora: the place to gain and share knowledge, empowering people to learn from others and better understand the ...

Philosophy of Science, Vol. 66, Supplement. Proceedings of the 1998 Biennial Meetings of the Philosophy of Science Association. Part I: Contributed Papers (Sep., 1999), pp. S170-S184 (15 pages) The ...

The recent confirmation of gravity waves observed by the LIGO project represents a huge breakthrough in physics, verifying Albert Einstein's predictions regarding the effect of mass on space and time ...

For decades, physicists have faced one of science’s greatest puzzles: merging quantum mechanics, which describes tiny particles, with general relativity, which explains the universe’s vast structures.

Physicists have developed a novel approach to solving one of the most persistent problems in theoretical physics: uniting gravity with the quantum world. In a recent paper published in the journal ...