Fields and Their Quanta

Because of continuing debates about foundational issues as well as the recent consensus about non-locality, it is time to resolve the long-standing quantum enigmas. These include wave-particle duality, the double-slit experiment, quantum randomness, entanglement, superpositions, and measurement. This book presents that resolution, based on the insights that (1) quantum field theory tells us that reality comprises a set of universal quantized fields that fill the universe and (2) standard quantum mechanics is the non-relativistic limit of quantum field theory. An immediate consequence is that there are no particles and that quanta such as photons and electrons are highly unified ("coherent"), spatially extended bundles of field energy. Every quantum object is always a wave in a field. It is never a particle. As Steven Weinberg puts it, "The basic ingredients of nature are fields; particles are derivative phenomena." This immediately resolves, for one example, the puzzle of the double-slit experiment in which quanta such as photons and electrons individually interfere like waves as they pass through the slits yet they impact the screen like tiny particles. The resolution: each photon or electron is actually a wave that extends coherently across both slits and across the entire interference pattern, and collapses to a far smaller, atom-sized wave (not a particle) upon entangling non-locally with the screen. Thus quantum physicists can finally get their act together. It's about time: After more than 120 years, quantum physics still harbors embarrassing puzzles and physicists remain unable to reach a consensus about what the theory means. Large questions like "What is quantum physics about?" and "What is the meaning of the quantum state?" elicit diverse replies, all different yet all offered with supreme confidence. Every science has healthy differences of opinion, but quantum physics is beyond the pale.