The unification of the fields of gravity, electricity, and magnetism has long been a dream of physics. The electro-magnetic field united the latter but gravity resisted, and the new fields of the standard model made it seem unlikely that one field could generate its many particles.
However if the strong, weak, and Higgs fields are unnecessary inventions (4.5.3), the dream re-emerges, as the fields to be unified reduce to three again. Their unification could be called the gravito-electro-magnetic field, but the quantum field is simpler.
What is the quantum field this model proposes? In simple terms, it is the quantum wave values of quantum theory that explain photons and electrons. Schrödinger’s equation describes how these waves spread but not why they collapse and restart at a point in a physical event. The answer given here is that processing waves restart when they overload the network they spread on. The same process that explains light can then also explain matter as quantum waves restarting in a standing wave (4.5.8). The quantum field then has three distinct properties:
1. Mass. The net processing result from +1 to -1 in one or more dimensions.
2. Charge. The net processing remainder from +1 to -1 in one or more dimensions.
3. Spin. The processing spin direction, which can be up or down for an axis.
These properties define the physical world we see. If all the values are null, we see empty space, but if the values are mass +1 and charge -1, we see an electron, and so on. Processing always spreads on the quantum network, so matter creates a quantum distribution around itself, like ripples in a bucket (Figure 5.15), to alter the quantum field around it.
In Figure 5.16, the mass, charge, and magnetism of matter affect the distribution it spreads around it. A large mass strengthens the quantum field closer to it to cause gravity. Charges speed up or slow down the quantum field between them, as remainders cancel or add, to cause an electrical field. Magnets also speed up or slow down the quantum field between them, as spins make space deeper or shallower, to cause a magnetic field.
The effect in all cases is that matter moves when the strength or speed of the quantum field around it changes, as even a small bias can give movement in our time.
Gravity and electro-magnetism move matter by altering the quantum field to bias its natural tremble, not by force. Gravitational fields bias the field strength around matter, electrical fields bias the field speed between charges, and magnetic fields do the same between magnets. These fields then derived from one field, the quantum field, which is based on waves not particles.
This unification is based on the assumption that quantum theory describes what is real, while the opposite assumption leads to many fields and many particles, as the standard model shows. The choice then is field unification or particles, but not both, and the implications are great, as the next section shows.