Electromagnetism is a property of spacetime itself, study finds
In particles physics, they have a different explanation of electromagnetism that is also very natural, almost inevitable. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_electrodynamics#Mathematical_formulation" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_electrodynamics#Mathem...</a> The explanation in particle physics is compatible with Quantum Mechanics and Special Relativity, but no one is sure about how to extend it to General Relativity. I'm not sure how compatible is it with the proposal in the article discussed here.<p>Non technical version (ELI25):<p>In quantum mechanics the wavefunction Ψ is has complex values. If you multiply everything in the universe by -1, nothing changes because all the physical results use ΨΨ* (where * is the complex conjugation). You can also multiply everything by i or -i. Moreover by any other complex number of modulo 1 because ΨΨ* does not change. (The technical term for this is U(1) global gauge symmetry.)<p>But you can be more ambitious and want to multiply each point of the universe by a different complex number of modulo 1. ΨΨ* does not change but the derivatives of Ψ change and they are also important. (When you use the same complex number everywhere, the derivatives is just a multiple of the original derivative. When you use a different number in each point, it changes.)<p>The only way to fix the problem with the derivative is to add a new field A. When you and multiply each point of the universe by a different complex number of modulo 1, then A changes in a simple to calculate but not obvious way. The change in A fix the problem with the derivatives of Ψ.<p>So now the equations of the universe with Ψ and A don't change when you make this change. (The technical term for this is U(1) local gauge symmetry.) When you write carefully how a universe like this look like, the new field A is electromagnetism. (Actually, you can get the electric field and magnetic field using the derivatives of A.)<p>This explanation looks more complicated than the explanation of the article, but the article is full of technical terms that you really don't want to know, like:<p>> <i>Riemann curvature tensor is more than just Ricci curvature—electromagnetic fields stretch and bend the spacetime</i>