occupies space. It contains energy.

Its presence
Field (physics) eliminates a true vacuum.”[2] The vacuum is free of
matter, but not free of field. The field creates a
"condition in space"”[3]

If an electrical charge is moved the effects on another

charge do not appear instantaneously. The first charge
feels a reaction force, picking up momentum, but the
second charge feels nothing until the influence,
traveling at the speed of light, reaches it and gives it the
momentum. Where is the momentum before the second
charge moves? By the law of conservation of
momentum it must be somewhere. Physicists have
found it of "great utility for the analysis of forces"[3] to
The magnitude of an electric field surrounding two think of it as being in the field.
equally charged (repelling) particles. Brighter areas
have a greater magnitude. The direction of the field is This utility leads to physicists believing that
not visible. electromagnetic fields actually exist, making the field
concept a supporting paradigm of the entire edifice of
modern physics. That said, John Wheeler and Richard
Feynman have entertained Newton's pre-field concept
of action at a distance (although they put it on the back
burner because of the ongoing utility of the field
concept for research in general relativity and quantum
electrodynamics).

"The fact that the electromagnetic field can possess

momentum and energy makes it very real... a particle
makes a field, and a field acts on another particle, and
Oppositely charged (attracting) particles. the field has such familiar properties as energy content
and momentum, just as particles can have"[3].
In physics, a field is a physical quantity associated to
each point of spacetime.[1] A field can be classified as a Fields are usually represented mathematically by
scalar field, a vector field, or a tensor field, according scalars, vectors, or tensors. For example, the
to whether the value of the field at each point is a gravitational field is a vector field because every point
scalar, a vector, or, more generally, a tensor, needs a vector to represent the magnitude and direction
respectively. For example, the Newtonian gravitational of the force. Examples of scalar fields are the
field is a vector field: specifying its value at a point in temperature fields and air pressure fields on weather
spacetime requires three numbers, the components of reports. Here, each point in the atmosphere has one
the gravitational field vector at that point. temperature or pressure associated with it. But the field
points are often connected by isotherms and isobars,
A field may be thought of as extending throughout the which join up the points of equal temperature or
whole of space. In practice, the strength of every pressure respectively. Isotherms and isobars, therefore,
known field has been found to diminish to the point of involve the construction of a vector field from scalar
being undetectable. For instance, in Newton's theory of data. After construction, each point shows not only the
gravity, the gravitational field strength is inversely temperature but the direction in which temperature
proportional to the square of the distance from the does not vary.
gravitating object. Therefore the Earth's gravitational
field quickly becomes undetectable (on cosmic scales).
Field theory
Defining the field as "numbers in space" shouldn't
detract from the idea that it has physical reality. “It
Field theory usually refers to a construction of the quantizing classical electrodynamics gives quantum
dynamics of a field, i.e. a specification of how a field electrodynamics. Quantum electrodynamics is arguably
changes with time or with respect to other components the most successful scientific theory; experimental data
of the field. Usually this is done by writing a confirm its predictions to a higher precision (to more
Lagrangian or a Hamiltonian of the field, and treating it significant digits) than any other theory.[4] The two
as the classical mechanics (or quantum mechanics) of a other fundamental quantum field theories are quantum
system with an infinite number of degrees of freedom. chromodynamics and the electroweak theory. These
The resulting field theories are referred to as classical three quantum field theories can all be derived as
or quantum field theories. special cases of the so-called standard model of particle
physics. General relativity, the classical field theory of
In modern physics, the most often studied fields are gravity, has yet to be successfully quantized.
those that model the four fundamental forces which one
day may lead to the Unified Field Theory. Classical field theories remain useful wherever
quantum properties do not arise, and can be active
Classical fields areas of research. Elasticity of materials, fluid
dynamics and Maxwell's equations are cases in point.
There are several examples of classical fields. The
dynamics of a classical field are usually specified by Continuous random fields
the Lagrangian density in terms of the field
components; the dynamics can be obtained by using the Classical fields as above, such as the electromagnetic
action principle. field, are usually infinitely differentiable functions, but
they are in any case almost always twice differentiable.
Michael Faraday first realized the importance of a field In contrast, generalized functions are not continuous.
as a physical object, during his investigations into When dealing carefully with classical fields at finite
magnetism. He realized that electric and magnetic temperature, the mathematical methods of continuous
fields are not only fields of force which dictate the random fields have to be used, because a thermally
motion of particles, but also have an independent fluctuating classical field is nowhere differentiable.
physical reality because they carry energy. Random fields are indexed sets of random variables; a
continuous random field is a random field that has a set
These ideas eventually led to the creation, by James of functions as its index set. In particular, it is often
Clerk Maxwell, of the first unified field theory in mathematically convenient to take a continuous
physics with the introduction of equations for the random field to have a Schwartz space of functions as
electromagnetic field. The modern version of these its index set, in which case the continuous random field
equations are called Maxwell's equations. At the end of is a tempered distribution.
the 19th century, the electromagnetic field was
understood as a collection of two vector fields in space. As a (very) rough way to think about continuous
Nowadays, one recognizes this as a single random fields, we can think of it as an ordinary
antisymmetric 2nd-rank tensor field in spacetime. function that is almost everywhere, but when we
take a weighted average of all the infinities over any
Einstein's theory of gravity, called general relativity, is finite region, we get a finite result. The infinities are
another example of a field theory. Here the principal not well-defined; but the finite values can be associated
field is the metric tensor, a symmetric 2nd-rank tensor with the functions used as the weight functions to get
field in spacetime. the finite values, and that can be well-defined. We can
define a continuous random field well enough as a
Quantum fields linear map from a space of functions into the real
numbers.
It is now believed that quantum mechanics should
underlie all physical phenomena, so that a classical Symmetries of fields
field theory should, at least in principle, permit a
recasting in quantum mechanical terms; success yields
the corresponding quantum field theory. For example,
A convenient way of classifying fields (classical or
quantum) is by the symmetries it possesses. Physical
symmetries are usually of two types:

Spacetime symmetries

Fields are often classified by their behaviour under

transformations of spacetime. The terms used in this
classification are —

 scalar fields (such as temperature) whose values

are given by a single variable at each point of
space. This value does not change under
transformations of space.
 vector fields (such as the magnitude and
direction of the force at each point in a
magnetic field) which are specified by attaching
a vector to each point of space. The components
of this vector transform between themselves as
usual under rotations in space.
 tensor fields, (such as the stress tensor of a
crystal) specified by a tensor at each point of
space. The components of the tensor transform
between themselves as usual under rotations in
space.
 spinor fields are useful in quantum field theory.

Internal symmetries

Fields may have internal symmetries in addition to

spacetime symmetries. For example, in many situations
one needs fields which are a list of space-time scalars:
(φ1,φ2...φN). For example, in weather prediction these
may be temperature, pressure, humidity, etc. In particle
physics, the color symmetry of the interaction of
quarks is an example of an internal symmetry of the
strong interaction, as is the isospin or flavour
symmetry.

If there is a symmetry of the problem, not involving

spacetime, under which these components transform
into each other, then this set of symmetries is called an
internal symmetry. One may also make a
classification of the charges of the fields under internal
symmetries.