field
Sign in to savephysical quantity, represented by a number or tensor, that has a value for each point in space-time
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A field is a physical quantity that has a value at every point in space and time, much like how temperature varies from place to place on a weather map. Fields matter because they provide a fundamental way to describe how forces and matter behave throughout the universe, from gravity to electromagnetism to the properties of particles themselves.
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Illustration of the electric field surrounding a positive (red) and a negative (blue) charge.
In science, a field or field quantity is a physical quantity – represented by a scalar, vector, spinor, or tensor – that has a value for each point in space and time. An example of a scalar field is a weather map of surface temperatures, described by assigning a number to each point on the map. A map of surface winds, assigning an arrow to each point on a map that describes the wind speed and direction at that point, is an example of a vector field. Strain tensor, representing the deformation of matter caused by stress, is an example of a tensor field. Field theories, mathematical descriptions of how field values change in space and time, are ubiquitous in physics. For instance, the electric field is another vector field, while electrodynamics can be formulated in terms of two interacting vector fields at each point in spacetime, or as a single-rank 2-tensor field.