What is the biggest most fundamental question in all of physics?

[DennisN]

I agree with most of what you say above, sophiecentaur. Science deals more with "hows" than "whys". But it seems it is in our human nature to first ask the question "why" and then try to explain/model "how", regardless of if "why" has been/can be answered or not (this is no criticism of science from me, it's just an observation of human nature ). And I agree Feynman was great, but he was still just one scientist among others, though. The field question (as jnorman originally formulated it) is a reasonable question IMHO. I see it as related to questions of the nature of vacuum;

"It [the field] occupies space. It contains energy. Its presence eliminates a true vacuum." (Wheeler)

"The fact that the electromagnetic field can possesses momentum and energy makes it very real... a particle makes a field, and a field acts on another particle, and the field has such familiar properties as energy content and momentum, just as particles can have". (Feynman)

 

[sophiecentaur]

"It [the field] occupies space. It contains energy. Its presence eliminates a true vacuum." (Wheeler)

etc...

This is too abbreviated, I think, because any statement which purports to be stating 'reality' should, implicitly or explicitly, be saying something like "The following model of reality, which we call a Field, behaves in the following way. . . ."
It is very handy to use the concept of Fields because it works very well. There need be nothing more than that.
We have almost managed to come to terms with the 'duality' of waves and particles and no one with any sense demands that we should choose one or the other. It is only a matter of time before an 'alternative' to Fields comes up which will explain certain things much better but not other things. (Sounds like String Theory, for instance). There will be a duality in this respect, too - so the Field will be recognised as just one way of looking at things.

I agree that Feynman was just one among others. He clearly had a number of hangups (not helped by his Ginormous EGO) but, on the whole, he was good value, I think. Goddam smart too.

 

[DennisN]

Sophiecentaur, I agree. And I think the progress of science will be something like you describe, in one way or another. And hey, we still use Newton now and then even though 300+ years have passed, so we'll probably be using fields too for a long time still . (Btw, the quotes were just examples that even Wheeler/Feynman may have wondered about the reality of fields at some point before; I'm of course not completely certain of how they were reasoning, though ).

 

[sophiecentaur]

Sophiecentaur, I agree. And I think the progress of science will be something like you describe, in one way or another. And hey, we still use Newton now and then even though 300+ years have passed, so we'll probably be using fields too for a long time still . (Btw, the quotes were just examples that even Wheeler/Feynman may have wondered about the reality of fields at some point before; I'm of course not completely certain of how they were reasoning, though ).

Only now and then?
When did you last sort out your car or put up a shelf using Relativity or QM?

 

[DennisN]

Good one! (I was thinking of gravitation). But you made a false assumption, leading to a false conclusion. I don't own a car.

 

[sophiecentaur]

But you do put up shelves?

This Forum's full of false assumptions.

 

[mklejeune]

And in any case, it's not really a question for philosophers because that sort of speculation was the preserve of philosophers centuries ago. Nowadays philosophers tend to be interested in things like logic, language, and the mind. The real heirs of that sort of philosophy are modern theoretical physicists.

In general I tend to agree, though modern developments in philosophy (in those areas you mentioned) have done a good job of examining the "sense" of certain questions. For example, the question of "what was going on in the Universe before stuff started existing?" may be more of a grammatical blunder than a tough nut to crack.

 

[DennisN]

Yep. For shelves I use common sense, a good hammer and Euclid if I ever would have to.