In the microcosm, long-range forces, gravity or electricity, do not switch off even at enormous distances. Therefore, any particle drags behind it a trail of soft (i.e., very low-energy) photons or gravitons. This trail is called the "dress"; without it, calculations fall apart and infinities appear.

Previously, it was thought that because of this dress, two dressed particles could not be described as two independent entities. They are stuck together like two balls of yarn whose threads have become tangled. But the authors of the paper found new variables — special zero modes of radiation. They act like a comb: they separate the shared threads into two distinct balls. In these variables, the many-particle state honestly factorizes into a product of single-particle states.

In essence, the physicists changed the perspective. What looked like a fundamental non-factorizability turned out to be an artifact of old coordinates. In the new reference frame, the world is again assembled from simple building blocks, like a children's construction set where each piece lives its own life, but when assembled, it does not create extra glue.