Could the fields for the particles and forces have the same origin?

[Brad12d3]

I was watching this terrific lecture by David Tong and there was a section at the end from around 50:12 - 54:00 that I found particularly fascinating. I am very much a layman when it comes to these topics and my question may be silly, but what sort of ideas are there that state that all the particles and forces come from the same fundamental building block?



As I understand it, string theory suggest that everything is made up tiny strings and depending on how they vibrate you will get different particles and forces.

Could there be a single fundamental field that all particle and force fields derive from?

I'm curious about the possibility of a single fundamental building block that is capable of so much diversity in the universe and would love to discover more ideas related to this topic.

 

[PeterDonis]

Could there be a single fundamental field that all particle and force fields derive from?

String theory is such a theory; the string is the fundamental field.

There have been other such theories proposed in the past, but none of them have worked out.