What we call a “particle” is, in the view of the branch of physics known as quantum field theory, a piece of a … well, quantum field. You take a patch of the universe, look for the quantum field you want to energize, energize it, and voilà: you get a bunch of particles hanging around that part of space. They can go on to live their little particle lives, and sometimes can even disappear—meaning that the field in that patch of the universe lost the energy to sustain their particley existence. That’s all weird but fine, but here’s the real kicker: the quantum fields of our universe are never
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