The Seen and The Unseen

If we knew what it was we were doing, it would not be called research, would it?"
..................A. Einstein


The Statistical Mechanic has returned and his first post got me thinking. In physics we always tell the students that if they can't do the problems, they don't understand it. But what if you can do the problems (or least some of them) and you still don't understand it?

Many of us among the slow students find ourselves in that fix, and even some smart guys seem to agree. What's the deal with gauge fields, anyway? The gauges of gauge fields turn out to be essential for doing the math of quantum field theory, but they cleverly conspire to remain unobservable. Why should it turn out that nature seems to have this invisible degree of freedom?

I have been reading Kerson Huang's book Fundamental Forces of Nature: The Story of Gauge Fields. I will probably review it later.

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