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Did physicist create the concept of electric field to describe the interaction of charge particles at a distance? If they are real, do we have experimental evidence? Please describe some of them. And what about other fields like gravitational field?

Paul T.
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Nikhil Negi
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    What does "really exist" mean precisely? It's philosophy, not physics! – D. Halsey Aug 25 '21 at 13:35
  • I have no opinion as to whether or not they are real, but it is certainly extremely useful to think of them as real! – Andrew Aug 25 '21 at 13:36
  • see also What is a field, really? – Paul T. Aug 25 '21 at 13:38
  • Another related question: Significance of electric field – Mark H Aug 25 '21 at 13:40
  • Tangentially related https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/647342/how-was-it-found-that-a-charge-produces-an-electric-field-rather-than-a-local – tryst with freedom Aug 25 '21 at 13:53
  • I found that I could understand the concepts of physics better once I stopped thinking of particles as tiny grains of sand and recognized that they are nothing more than ripples on a pond. That includes quarks, gluons, atoms, and even my own fingers. They are all just differently shaped ripples on a pond. So the question you've asked is, does this pond really exist or is it just a mathematical model? I'd answer that yes, it positively exists. Otherwise we wouldn't be here to discuss it. – foolishmuse Aug 25 '21 at 15:57
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    Well, are elementary particles real or did physicists create the concept to describe subatomic behavior? Experimental evidence doesn't prove that our descriptions of various aspects of reality are what the underlying reality really is, only that predictions (computed behaviors/consequences) of those descriptions are consistent with what's observed. In other words, it's real in the sense that it captures something true, some facet of the underlying reality, and you can never do better than that. See: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0KmimDq4cSU – Filip Milovanović Aug 25 '21 at 16:02

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In order for electric fields to be real, we maybe would need electric charges and geometric points to be real. So it is probably a model, but we can't really know for sure and math by itself cannot prove whether these concepts are real or not.

hellofriends
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