Quantum Fields: The Real Building Blocks of the Universe - with David Tong
Why Hacker News recommends it
Called a favorite and a masterpiece by commenters as the clearest accessible explanation that there are only waves in fields, and what physics still doesn't know.
What it is
David Tong, a Cambridge theoretical physicist, explains at the Royal Institution that the fundamental building blocks of nature are quantum fields rather than particles. He covers what we know about these fields and how they fit into the Standard Model.
Recommended by 5 HN commenters across 6 different months, 2019 to 2025.
What Hacker News said
Strong rec Eupraxias · 2022-08 · on “What is quantum field theory and why is it incomplete?”
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]
Strong rec thekevan · 2025-01 · on “A video tour of the Standard Model (2021)”
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]
Strong rec jaggs · 2025-04 · on “David Tong Lectures on Theoretical Physics”
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]
Recommends TheFiend7 · 2019-12 · on “What Makes the Hardest Equations in Physics So Difficult? (2018)”
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]
Recommends Agamus · 2022-07 · on “Why Read Fichte Today?”
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]
Recommends Eupraxias · 2022-12 · on “The Zen Anti-Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics (2021)”
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]
Cites ianai · 2022-01 · on “Any single galaxy reveals the composition of an entire universe”
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]
Cites Agamus · 2022-06 · on “Ten years after the Higgs, physicists face the nightmare of finding nothing else”
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]