From Harold Kirkham, Richland, Washington, US
The article about fields reminded me of my undergraduate days. When Chanda Prescod-Weinstein writes that a field is a mathematical relation that “assigns a number to each point in space and time”, she is, of course, correct. Novice electrical engineers were expected to accept this as a matter of faith, something I found challenging (23 May, p 17).
Ultimately, the problem is that we use the word “field” to mean the abstract, conceptual-world representation of something to which we also give the name “field.” A description in the conceptual world cannot influence the path of a particle, and cannot be measured. But an electric or magnetic field can most certainly change the motion of a particle, and can be measured.
As a metrologist, I would say that a “field” is something that exists in space and time, and affects things in the real world. It is unfortunate that we use the same word to name its mathematical model in the conceptual world.
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