Everything Is Fields: How Quantum Field Theory Explains You, Me, and the Universe

by David Tong

A leading theoretical physicist takes us on a lively tour of quantum field theory, the most fundamental description we have for what makes up the universe.

In Everything Is Fields, the leading theoretical physicist and Cambridge professor David Tong reveals a startling that, at the most basic level, we are made not of particles or forces but of fields, fluidlike substances stretched throughout the entire universe. He takes us on an exuberant tour of quantum field theory, the underlying mathematical framework of our deepest description of the fundamental laws of physics. With his infectious wonder, wit, and keen appreciation of the absurdities and serendipities of his field, Tong buoys our journey through the most difficult topic in theoretical physics with lively stories of the scientists who made key discoveries along the way. He revels in all that we’ve learned about our world and illuminates the questions we’re still trying to answer about this breathtaking vision of physics, one that describes everything from the smallest subatomic particle to the dynamics of the entire universe.

400 pages, Hardcover

Expected publication March 16, 2027

About the author

David Tong is your average Malaysian guy - down-to-earth and handsome. Bread and buttered at the King George Vth. School, Seremban after the WWII, he was thereafter trained as a teacher at the Kirkby College in Liverpool, England. In addition to a number of years as a teacher of English as a second language, his background encompasses sales and marketing, and general and agency management.

Now retired, David spends most of his senior years laughing over both old and new jokes, believing that laughter is certainly good medicine for his bones. When he is not laughing in his sarung at his home in Kuala Lumpur, David can be found sipping teh tarik at his favorite mamak stall, making quirky remarks and spinning frivolous kopitiam years with his cronies.