There is more than once kind of field
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When we were first preparing to launch my column for New Scientist, my editor asked me what I would like to call it. “Field notes from space-time,” I said. This title has a bit of a double entendre that might not be obvious, but was fun for me as a physicist. It is a reference to the scientific idea of taking notes while out in the field – a lab notebook of sorts. Simultaneously, it alludes to a specific concept that is very important in particle physics: the field itself.
You might think that a field is a big open space you find on a farm, but in physics it is more abstract. Essentially, a field is a mathematical relation that assigns a number to each point in space and time. The intention is to characterise some physical phenomenon at that location. For example, when you feel the pull of a fridge magnet close to a refrigerator door, there is a magnetic force working between the two. That force has a magnetic field value at each location in space that gets stronger as the distance between the magnet and the fridge shrinks.
