Particles are the foundation of everything in the universe but, surprisingly, their true nature remains a mystery. Physicists have diverse and conflicting descriptions of particles, highlighting the complicated and abstract nature of these fundamental building blocks. Whether a collapsed wave function, a quantum excitation of a field, or an irreducible representation of a group, the essence of particles straddles the worlds of mathematics and reality with unclear footing. Recent research efforts explore innovative perspectives, such as particles as deformations of the qubit ocean, offering a new and intriguing look at the nature of particles as holograms encoded by quantum information.
https://www.quantamagazine.org/what-is-a-particle-20201112/