Ontological categories for fields and waves

Abstract

Fields and waves are prominent features of modern physics. They are also important for engineering applications as well as biology and medicine. Therefore these entities should be represented in applied formal ontologies for these domains. While there have been some contributions with respect to a field approach in Geo-Ontologies, very little has been done for fundamental fields like electromagnetism. In this paper I will discuss and evaluate two ontological options for fields: Fields as qualities of points or regions in space and fields as substantial entities. Furthermore, I argue that waves are processes involving fields, therefore dependent on fields, although these may in turn be dependent on some material substrate.