Obligatory link for those that want to go a bit deeper into the rabbit hole - The Theoretical Minimum, a collection of physics lecture by Leonard Susskind.<p><a href="http://theoreticalminimum.com/" rel="nofollow">http://theoreticalminimum.com/</a>
This is a pretty good introduction. I highly recommend Feynman's book "QED: The Strange Theory of Light and Matter" as an excellent in-depth work that does not sacrifice accuracy for the sake of making difficult ideas understandable. It is both very clear to the layperson and accurate to the physics.
This is a great article. One thing I don't understand: the author says:<p>> If you want to create something heavy like the Higgs boson, you have to hit the
> Higgs field with a sufficiently large (and sufficiently concentrated) burst of
> energy to give the field the necessary one quantum of energy.)<p>So when the LHC creates a spike of energy at a point large enough to create a Higgs boson, why does that energy interact with the Higgs field and get "used up" by other fields? In other words, if Higgs requires 100 units of energy and electrons require 1, why do we get 1 Higgs boson and not 100 electrons?
Are quantum fields actual elements of reality or just a convenient mathematical tool to deal with many particle systems?<p>One of the questions I am struggling to find a satisfying answer for for quite some time. Depends on whom you ask? We can't tell because both ways of thinking are completely equivalent? Fields are real! No, they are just a tool! Are there issues with real fields forming a preferred reference frame? Does somebody know? (My current understanding seems to suggest that fields are just a tool.)
Ether is back!<p>Well, somewhat. Now it's in the form of Higgs field. Unlike ether, Higgs field does not interact with uniformly moving particles, only those that are accelerating.<p>Here's a great book I just recently listened: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/The-Black-Hole-War-Mechanics/dp/0316016411" rel="nofollow">http://www.amazon.com/The-Black-Hole-War-Mechanics/dp/031601...</a><p>It's by Leonard Susskind from Stanford. The thoughts experiments in the book are just terrific. Loved it.