I've been having discussions about this with my brother about this recently (who is a million times smarter than me) and it's remarkable to me that all througho

I've been having discussions about this with my brother about this recently (who is a million times smarter than me) and it's remarkable to me that all throughout school we think of matter at real, solid stuff we see around us while subatomic particles are virtual abstractions used to describe the solid, real stuff. I never could've understood quantum field theory in those days (and still probably don't for the most part), but from what I do understand it's turned my previous "knowledge" upside down - EVERYTHING is made up of fields or pure mathematical structures, even the empty space around us, and it's the matter and particles which we can see and feel that is a virtual abstraction made up of those fields.