The unification of gravity, electricity, and magnetism has long been a dream of physics, but while virtual photons unified electricity and magnetism, virtual gravitons couldn’t explain gravity. Then, as the standard model invented particles to explain forces, the dream was lost, because one field couldn’t generate all its particles.
But if the strong, weak, and Higgs fields are unnecessary inventions (4.5.3), the dream of a unified field theory re-emerges, as the fields to unify are again just gravity and electro-magnetism. This unification could be called the gravito-electro-magnetic field, but the quantum field is simpler.
What then is the quantum field? In simple terms, it is the quantum values that explain light and matter in quantum theory. Schrödinger’s equation describes how these values spread, but not why they collapse to a point in a physical event, however processing that overloads a network can restart at a point. This allows matter to be a standing wave overload that constantly restarts (4.5.8), with three different properties:
1. Mass. The net process value from +1 to -1 in one or more dimensions.
2. Charge. The net process remainder from +1 to -1 in one or more dimensions.
3. Spin. The process spin direction, which can be up or down for an axis.
Matter then spreads its existence around itself, like ripples in a bucket (Figure 5.15), because all quantum activity is always passed on. The result is a quantum field that sets these values throughout space, and generates the physical world we see. For example, if its values are null, we see empty space, but if they are mass +1, charge -1, and spin ±1, we see an electron, and so on.
In Figure 5.16, the mass, charge, and magnetism of matter spread into the quantum field around it. Mass strengthens the field closer to it to cause a gravity field, charges alter the field between them to cause an electrical field, and magnets also alter the field between them to cause a magnetic field.
The effect in all cases is that matter moves when the quantum field around it is stronger or faster one way, as even a small bias can give movement in our time.
Matter doesn’t just sit there, but spreads its mass, charge, and spin into the space around it, to cause the fields of gravity, electricity, and magnetism. These fields then all arise from one quantum field with three aspects, namely net strength (mass), net remainder (charge), and spin direction (magnetism). If the same fundamental quantum activity also explains the other fields of physics (4.5.8), the quantum field explains all the forces of physics.
The alternative approach, that the quantum field is imaginary, requires the many fields and particles of the standard model, so there can be field unification or particles, but not both. The next section explores how the quantum field creates order as well as disorder.