Mermin habitually answers opinions, real and abstract

David Mermin criticizes the “reification” of magnetic fields, but he allows that spark chamber trajectories and atomic spectra are real, so why not also accept magnetic fields, ionic lattices, the cosmic microwave background, and so on? And is reification such a bad habit? Intuitive flashes of insight come as much from immersing yourself in the reality of the physics as from holding your nose and manipulating formal symbols. Often, reification leads us in the right direction: I assume Mermin has no plans to revive Mach’s crusade against the reality of the atom.

I sympathize with Mermin’s desire to distinguish between mathematical abstractions like quantum field operators and solid realities like metals, but by any reasonable standard, magnetic fields are just as real as equally invisible variations in air pressure. Mermin worries that quantum mechanics describes fields—and atoms and everything else—in weird abstract terms, but allowing the weirdness of quantum mechanics to undermine the normal concept of what is real seems like a case of taking a successful theory too seriously, which is just what he was warning us not to do.