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On the Significance of Fields in Physics

Author: Zhang Suhang
Affiliation: Luoyang School of Mathematics
Date: October 2026

Abstract

Throughout the history of physics, the concept of the field has permeated all systems spanning classical physics, modern quantum physics, and frontier information physics. Concepts such as gravitational fields, electromagnetic fields, and quantum fields are dispersed across different sub-branches, presenting a long-standing fragmented cognitive state. The academic community and learners universally acknowledge that "fields are omnipresent," yet there is a lack of an integrated, coherent logic to elucidate why all fundamental phenomena in the physical world ultimately exist, evolve, and interact relying on fields.

This paper does not propose new physical laws or construct new physical models; it solely conducts a systematic integration and logical reconstruction of the existing mature physical landscape. It uniformly clarifies: particles arise relying on fields, fundamental charges are defined by fields, interactions rely on field couplings, energy is stored and transformed via field configurations, and physical information is carried and evolved through fields. Through this panoramic reconstruction, it establishes the field as the sole underlying carrier of the physical world.

Keywords: Field; Physical Reality; Interaction; Quantum Excitation; Energy Evolution; Information Carrier

1. Introduction

Looking back at the construction of physics systems, humanity's cognition of natural laws has undergone a paradigm shift from point-mass mechanics and action-at-a-distance to the complete establishment of field theory systems.

Classical physics broke action-at-a-distance, establishing a continuous medium picture of electromagnetic and gravitational fields; modern quantum field theory further unified matter and fields, proposing that particles are excited states of fields; the modern frontiers of physics further incorporate energy evolution and quantum information evolution entirely into the dynamical framework of fields.

However, for a long time, physics' cognition of fields has been fragmented by sub-disciplines, used locally, and lacking in systematicity:

· Classical mechanics uses fields only to describe the transmission of forces;
· Electromagnetism uses fields only to describe electromagnetic distributions;
· Quantum field theory uses fields only to describe particle excitations;
· Quantum information theory implicitly uses fields merely as an evolutionary background.

Everyone uses fields, yet no one has systematically explained what essential contents of the physical world the field actually carries. It appears omnipresent, but in reality, cognition is fragmented.

Based on this, this paper conducts a unified review of the entire physical functions of fields, connecting dispersed physical conclusions to form a self-consistent, complete, and panoramic cognitive system of field ontology.

2. Field as the Underlying Substrate of Fundamental Particles

The core conclusion of modern quantum field theory can be summarized as: fields are more fundamental physical realities, and particles are local excitations of fields.

The vacuum is not nothingness, but the ground state of various fundamental quantum fields; all fundamental particles, such as electrons, quarks, photons, and gluons, are excitations, vibrations, or local modes of their corresponding fields.

In other words:
Without fields, there are no particles.
Particles are not independent entities, but merely a form of existence of fields.

This completely overturns the classical cognition of "particle entity priority," establishing the primacy of the field.

3. Field Carries All Fundamental Intrinsic Physical Attributes

All fundamental physical intrinsic attributes, such as mass, charge, color charge, and spin, do not belong to the particles themselves, but to the corresponding field systems.

Particles possess charge because their corresponding fields possess electromagnetic coupling attributes; particles possess color charge because the strong interaction field possesses color dynamics degrees of freedom; the origin of particle mass comes from the symmetry-breaking coupling mechanism between fields.

All microscopic fundamental quantum numbers and intrinsic attributes are inherent identifiers of the field system. Particles are merely concrete forms manifested by fields carrying these attributes.

4. Field as the Occurrence Carrier of All Fundamental Interactions

The four fundamental interactions in physics do not involve action-at-a-distance; they are all coupling interactions between fields and fields.

Electromagnetic interaction: Charged fields couple with electromagnetic fields;
Strong interaction: Quark fields couple with gluon fields;
Weak interaction: Symmetrical coupling between lepton fields and gauge fields;
Gravitational interaction: Geometric deformation coupling of spacetime fields.

It can be uniformly summarized:
All forces in nature are essentially the coupling and transmission of fields.
Without fields, no interactions would exist in the physical world.

5. Configuration Changes of Fields Determine All Energy Evolution

The energy of a physical system does not attach to point masses, but is stored in the overall configuration and vibrational forms of fields.

The ground state of fields corresponds to vacuum zero-point energy;
Local excitations of fields correspond to particle energy;
Perturbations, diffusions, and coupling changes of fields correspond to the transfer, transformation, and dissipation of system energy.

The energy conservation, energy exchange, and energy evolution of all physical processes are essentially dynamic reconstructions of field configurations.

6. Field as the Sole Carrier and Evolutionary Arena of Physical Information

All physical events, physical states, and quantum state evolutions occur entirely within the field system.

Spatial states, particle states, interaction states, and evolutionary paths are essentially information carried by fields.

From the continuous state information of classical fields to the superposition state information of quantum fields, all physical information in the universe is stored via fields, propagated via fields, and evolved via fields.

The field is the information matrix of the physical world.

7. Overall Summary: Field as the Sole Underlying Ontology of the Physical World

Integrating all mature physical conclusions reviewed in this paper, a unified, complete, and self-consistent physical worldview can be obtained:

1. Matter originates from fields: Particles are excitations of fields;
2. Attributes originate from fields: All intrinsic quantum numbers belong to the field system;
3. Action originates from fields: All fundamental forces are couplings of fields;
4. Energy originates from fields: Energy is a state quantity of field configurations;
5. Information originates from fields: All physical evolution is the information evolution of fields.

In all systems of classical physics, quantum physics, and information physics:
The field is not an auxiliary tool, nor an approximate model; it is the underlying reality and sole carrier of the universe.

This paper introduces no new physical hypotheses; it merely completes the first systematic and panoramic unified reconstruction of the fragmented and segregated field physics landscape that has existed for centuries, thoroughly answering:
Why fields permeate all of physics, and why fields are the ultimate underlying architecture of physics.

References

[1] Dirac, P. A. M. The Principles of Quantum Mechanics [M].
[2] Feynman, R. P. Quantum Electrodynamics [M].
[3] Weinberg, S. The Quantum Theory of Fields [M].
[4] Landau, L. D., Lifshitz, E. M. The Classical Theory of Fields [M].

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