James Fodor

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3,084 appearances 4 recordings 1 series first heard Jun 2026 last heard 30 Aug

James Fodor’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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Recordings per month over the last 12 months — 4 in all, peaking in Aug 2026 with 2.

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The Science of Everything Podcast · Episode 163: The Standard Model of Particle Physics · 8 Aug 2026 podcast

Yeah.

So quantum mechanics uh sort of originated early twentieth century, particularly the nineteen twenties and thirties, was when a lot of the

initial work was completed.

Those theories mostly describe

Non-relativistic quantum mechanics of single particles.

And so that is what you would likely study in introductory courses to quantum mechanics, and it's uh what I discussed in um the first episodes that I did as well on uh quantum mechanics.

For example, episode 14: Principles of Quantum Mechanics.

So there I talked about non-relativistic quantum mechanics and the Schrdinger equation and so forth.

In the 1940s through 1960s, non-relativistic.

relativistic quantum mechanics was developed into a more comprehensive and broader theory called quantum electrodynamics, which is able to describe quantum systems in which there are variable numbers of particles and at a relativistic uh at relativistic velocities.

Those are connected obviously because when you have very high energies uh of relativistic velocities, then you can also have interactions that change the numbers of of particles.

So um that is what I discussed in the two episodes on quantum electrodynamics that I that I talked about, uh episodes 158 and 159, and also the earlier more general theories, uh more general theory of quantum field theory, episode 85.

However, as I described at the time

Quantum electrodynamics only describes one of the four forces, which is the electromagnetic force.

It does not apply to any of the other forces of nature.

And so once essentially this theory of uh relativistic multiparticle or variable particle quantum mechanics, quantum electrodynamics, was developed by the late 1960s, there was a desire to expand that theory to account for other forces of nature.

So let's then just take a step back.

When did we find out about these other forces of nature?

Obviously, uh scientists have known about gravity and electromagnetism for a very long time.

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