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 ...

From Fundamental Concepts to Dynamical Mechanisms, by Wolfgang Bietenholz and Uwe-Jens Wiese, Cambridge University Press.

The search for quantum gravity is the next big step in physics, as researchers seek to unify the physics of the very small ...

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 ...

Mean-field theory and semiclassical methods constitute vital frameworks in contemporary quantum mechanics. By replacing the intricate web of particle interactions with an average or “mean” field, mean ...

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 ...

Mathematicians have struggled to understand the moduli space of graphs. A new paper uses tools from physics to peek inside. “That’s a super hard problem. It’s amazing they were able to,” said Dan ...

At the subatomic level, particles interact not only with one another, but with the quantum fields inherent to space, both owing to the presence of charged sources and also to the quantum vacuum of ...

String theory unifies all the forces of nature. Forces that seem very different, such as gravity and electricity, are deeply ...

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 ...

A new physics paper takes a step toward creating a long-sought "theory of everything" by uniting gravity with the quantum world. However, the new theory remains far from being proven observationally.

Noncommutative Quantum Field Theory represents an ambitious extension of standard quantum field theory that incorporates a fundamental noncommutativity in the structure of spacetime. In these models, ...