I get that it’s values. It’s like, you assign a value to every point in space. But what “is” the electron field? It’s… what? I mean like a Kantian “field an sich”. Is the electron field the amount of electron-ness at a given point in space? What does that even mean beyond a calculation?
Are fields “real entities” with an objective physical reality? Or are they just mathematical abstractions that we use for calculation? Can you talk about fields without math? Does that even make sense? Like, I can talk about electrons without math. I can say they’re point particles that carry charge. But can you talk about the electron field outside of math? Or the EM field? Does it genuinely exist outside of an Electrodynamics calculation?
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I think probably the simplest description is “a zone of influence (or zone where some influence can be observed) surrounding a phenomenon.” The field is not solely the source itself, it is the region where whatever the source does has impact without direct contact being required.
It is a pretty vague term for a pretty vague thing. The “value” that gets assigned is just a way to measure the magnitude of the effect produced by the phenomenon at a specific location.
Fields usually, but are not required to, involve a distance parameter as one of the variables to the mathematical function used to define the behavior of the field.
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