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Excellent points, PatrickD. Jacob, I have an open mind about this. But if you're right, I'm wondering why the term "field theory" is used for "quantum field theory" (which denies action-at-a-distance and relies on the never-found graviton particles), while classical "quantum theory" is not a field theory (it has action-at-a-distance and no gravitons). Can you fit that difference in terminology to your explanation?--[[User:Aschlafly|Andy Schlafly]] 21:57, 15 November 2009 (EST)
Excellent points, PatrickD. Jacob, I have an open mind about this. But if you're right, I'm wondering why the term "field theory" is used for "quantum field theory" (which denies action-at-a-distance and relies on the never-found graviton particles), while classical "quantum theory" is not a field theory (it has action-at-a-distance and no gravitons). Can you fit that difference in terminology to your explanation?--[[User:Aschlafly|Andy Schlafly]] 21:57, 15 November 2009 (EST)
:I agree with Patrick; this isn't worth a big fight. Especially considering we're talking about a totally obsolete concept.
:"Action at a distance" is a figure of speech. All it means is an interaction where the mediator hasn't been identified yet. And it has nothing to do with instantaneous anything, so let's not confuse the question.
:To say a theory was "based on action at a distance" is not a meaningful collection of words, because "action at a distance" isn't a scientific principle. We might as well say the theory was based on lamb stew. Tasty, but not scientific.
:I don't think this concept deserves a detailed article, any more than we'd write a detailed article on the luminiferous aether.
:Overall, this article should be erased and replaced with a three-sentence definition and some links:
:"A field theory is any [[theory]] in physics which describes a [[fundamental interaction]] in terms of a [[field]] that mediates that interaction. In an abstract field theory, a particle interacts in some way with a field, and then the field in turn interacts with another particle, thereby transferring some quantity ([[momentum]], [[energy]] or [[charge]], for instance) from one particle to another. Abstract field theories are considered obsolete in [[modern physics]], and have been replaced with [[metric theory|metric theories]] and gauge-invariant [[quantum field theory|quantum field theories]]." --[[User:KSorenson|KSorenson]] 22:11, 15 November 2009 (EST)