In physics, an effective field theory is, as any effective theory, an approximate theory, (usually a quantum field theory) that includes appropriate degrees of freedom to describe physical phenomena occurring at a chosen length scale, while ignoring substructure and degrees of freedom at shorter distances (or, equivalently, at higher energies).
Read more about Effective Field Theory: The Renormalization Group
Famous quotes containing the words effective, field and/or theory:
“Social questions are too sectional, too topical, too temporal to move a man to the mighty effort which is needed to produce great poetry. Prison reform may nerve Charles Reade to produce an effective and businesslike prose melodrama; but it could never produce Hamlet, Faust, or Peer Gynt.”
—George Bernard Shaw (18561950)
“I see a girl dragged by the wrists
Across a dazzling field of snow,
And there is nothing in me that resists.
Once it would not be so....”
—Philip Larkin (19221986)
“Frankly, these days, without a theory to go with it, I cant see a painting.”
—Tom Wolfe (b. 1931)