This really entertaining and informative video explains clearly and vividly all that physicists know about the reality at its most fundamental level and why they have such confidence in this description. It also explains what is yet to be understood in order to get the final and complete picture of the physical reality. Along the way we see:-
1) Reality is not made of particles but 12 lumpy material fields, 4 force fields and one mass field that together explains and predicts every physical phenomena on earth, every single experiment ever conducted, and most of the features of the universe upto 10^-33 seconds after the Big Bang expansion.
2) The interplay between all these fields can be, and is expressed in a single moderately sized but difficult to solve equation which, when solved analytically or numerically gives back the observable reality that is known and tested, including the behavior of empty space-time.
3) Particles are localized amplitudes in these fields.
4) The video shows how the galaxies and all structure in cosmos emerged from quantum fluctuations in an energetic empty space and how this has been verified.
4) The equation currently is only solvable when gravitational space-time field is not extremely energetic (near the Big Bang or near a Black Hole) and an extension of the current field theory into such realms (quantum gravity fields) is one of the main projects of science.
5) Cosmology shows that there are at least one two more matter fields that are so weakly interacting that they have not cropped up in experiments, these are what cosmologists called dark matter. Cosmology also shows that empty space on very large scales have a cumulative repulsive pressure that is called the dark energy which needs a more accurate solution to the field equations than are currently available. Understanding these are the next major goal of theoretical physics.
The video also provides a nice description of why science is not dogmatic and how people are willing to go back to the drawing board when experiments disprove their favorite models.
1) Reality is not made of particles but 12 lumpy material fields, 4 force fields and one mass field that together explains and predicts every physical phenomena on earth, every single experiment ever conducted, and most of the features of the universe upto 10^-33 seconds after the Big Bang expansion.
2) The interplay between all these fields can be, and is expressed in a single moderately sized but difficult to solve equation which, when solved analytically or numerically gives back the observable reality that is known and tested, including the behavior of empty space-time.
3) Particles are localized amplitudes in these fields.
4) The video shows how the galaxies and all structure in cosmos emerged from quantum fluctuations in an energetic empty space and how this has been verified.
4) The equation currently is only solvable when gravitational space-time field is not extremely energetic (near the Big Bang or near a Black Hole) and an extension of the current field theory into such realms (quantum gravity fields) is one of the main projects of science.
5) Cosmology shows that there are at least one two more matter fields that are so weakly interacting that they have not cropped up in experiments, these are what cosmologists called dark matter. Cosmology also shows that empty space on very large scales have a cumulative repulsive pressure that is called the dark energy which needs a more accurate solution to the field equations than are currently available. Understanding these are the next major goal of theoretical physics.
The video also provides a nice description of why science is not dogmatic and how people are willing to go back to the drawing board when experiments disprove their favorite models.