1204.4616 (Art Hobson)

There are no particles, there are only fields    [PDF]

Art Hobson

Quantum foundations are still unsettled, with harmful effects on science and society. By now it should be possible to obtain consensus on at least one issue: Are the fundamental constituents fields or particles? Experiment and theory imply a universe made of unbounded fields rather than bounded particles. This is especially clear for relativistic quantum systems, and it follows that non-relativistic quantum systems must also be made of fields. Particles are epiphenomena arising from real fields. Thus the Schroedinger field is not a probability amplitude for "finding, upon measurement, a particle" but rather a real space-filling field; the field for an electron is the electron; each electron comes through both slits in the 2-slit experiment and spreads over the entire pattern; and quantum physics is about interactions of microscopic systems with the macroscopic world rather than just about measurements. It's important to clarify this issue because textbooks still teach a particles- and measurement-oriented interpretation that leads to bewilderment among students and pseudoscience among the public. This article reviews classical and quantum fields, the 2-slit experiment, rigorous theorems showing that particles are inconsistent with relativistic quantum theory, and several phenomena demonstrating that particles are incompatible with quantum field theories.

View original: http://arxiv.org/abs/1204.4616