Quantized Field Theories

Abstract

Although the concept of information was so slow to develop in classical physics, the more difficult concept of a field of force has long been fundamental in physical theory. The classical field theories of gravitation and electromagnetism were evolved, as rational alternatives to theories of action at a distance, to account for the transmission of information by gravity and electrical action between different points of space and time. The first applications of the Principle of Least Action were to the mechanics of particles and rigid bodies, but were easily extended to embrace theories of the gravitational and electromagnetic field. In the twentieth century, new field theories were developed on the basis of Schrödinger’s wave mechanics and other wave equations for particles of every type, so that field theory became the natural medium for the formulation of the fundamental laws of physics.