Quantum Fields: The Real Building Blocks of the Universe - with David Tong

His quantum mechanics lecture on YouTube at the Royal Society I think, is a masterpiece. Some very interesting facts, mostly about what we don't know. ▶ this video

When I see "explanation of the Standard Model", my mind immediately goes to my favorite YT video, which is Dr Tong's talk at the Royal Institution. I started watching this video and it took me a second to recognize the voice, it's him as well! If you want a long version: ▶ this video

All of this makes more sense when understood in terms of Field theory: David Tong: Quantum Fields ▶ this video "All the electrons that are in your body are not fundamental. All the electrons that exist in your body are waves of the same underlying field." The next question is, if there are no individual things, what does math count? link

I would love to hear any critical take on David Tong's excellent video here: ▶ this video "Quantum Fields: The Real Building Blocks of the Universe" I'm interested to talk to others who want to think about QFT past the maths. I had my own stab at making sense of related ontological implications here: link

Do any experts know if there is any overlap in this research with the study of quantum fluctuations in empty space? ▶ this video (David Tong: Quantum Field Theory)

Agreed - mathematics is predicated on the idea that there are individual things, but as we are learning, through things like quantum field theory, there are no individual things, hence, no individuated 'things' to count. As such, mathematics is not the 'language of nature'. Check out David Tang's lecture on QFT: "there are no particles, only waves" ▶ this video Mathematics still works (at our scale); the consequence is precision. Individuation of anything is a construct - including subjects and objects: link

I think this is correct. My sense is that the assumption of _individuation_ is at the core of logic, which then infects all rational thinking. (We add the predicates to "things", and then forget that we added them!) If there are no individual things, as quantum field theory seems to suggest, what are numbers counting? ▶ this video link

The cosmological background radiation, which is an image of the universe shortly after the big bang and before inflation, looks similar to the current layout of matter across the universe. This would seem consistent with a universe being able to be extrapolated from a region of it if there's some underlying holographic relationships. Based on this clip from David Tong. Starts here and goes on a few minutes: ▶ this video

Honestly I feel as though that's one of the most incredible aspects of theoretical physics I've seen. The fact that often times these underlying physics are danced around and even though they're unknown, we can tell something is not quite right. I believe this guy even talks about it a bit in this video made by the Royal Institution (which I really enjoy watching), discussing the possibility of different fundamental building blocks of nature. ▶ this video