I have posted my fourth article discussing zero-point energy. (Here are the first, the second, and the third, which covered respectively the zero-point energy of a ball on a spring, a guitar string, and a bosonic field whose particles have zero mass, such as the electromagnetic field.) Today’s article looks at fields whose particles have non-zero mass, such as the Higgs field, and fermionic fields, such as the electron field and quark fields. It presents some simple formulas, and in its final section, shows how one can obtain them using math.

Along the way we’ll encounter the idea of “supersymmetry” and its failed role in the cosmological constant problem. This is a word which (for some good historical reasons) generates a lot of heat. But stay calm; I’m neither promoting it nor bashing it. Supersymmetry is an idea which proves useful as a conceptual tool, whether it is true in nature or not.