Select Page
Poker Forum
Over 1,292,000 Posts!
Poker ForumFTR Community

**Ask a monkey a physics question thread**

Results 1 to 75 of 2535

Hybrid View

Previous Post Previous Post   Next Post Next Post
  1. #1
    Quote Originally Posted by wufwugy View Post
    Related question: is there a way to know if something is true based exclusively on the math? Or is it that math can operate within its own systems, so even a mathematical model that explains every known thing perfectly may still be false?
    I'll wait for MMMs answer as far as the physics goes, but as an interesting tangent:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6...eness_theorems

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entscheidungsproblem

    One of the themes of early 20th century mathematics was the attempt to prove that our systems of mathematics were internally consistent - that is to say, if we had a set of axioms and a system such as the natural numbers, that we could, in theory at least, prove that every true statement in that system was true, or that we could, in theory at least, construct a hypothetical "maths machine" that could take a statement and decide it's truth or falseness. In many ways, this parrallels newtonian physics - the idea that even if only in theory, we could predict/understand all the physical phenomena in the universe.

    Both physics and maths turned out to be more subtle than was believed, physics with the discovery of relativity and quantum theories, and mathematics with Godel/Turing and the work done on computability/decidability and the discovery that, to state Godels theorem in the plainest way, if a mathematical system is internally consistent then it must not be complete (there must be things we can't state or prove within it), and that quite aside from that a system can't be used to prove it's own consistency.
  2. #2
    Quote Originally Posted by BorisTheSpider View Post
    to state Godels theorem in the plainest way, if a mathematical system is internally consistent then it must not be complete (there must be things we can't state or prove within it), and that quite aside from that a system can't be used to prove it's own consistency.
    doesn't that mean that a "theory of everything" is impossible?
  3. #3
    Quote Originally Posted by wufwugy View Post
    doesn't that mean that a "theory of everything" is impossible?
    My best answer to that would be, that physics doesn't have a single proof of anything in it. Physics concerns itself with making theories about nature then comparing the predictions of those theories with observation, if a theory makes predictions that agree closely with observation, the best we can do is say that the theory is an accurate model of nature, but we can't prove anything, and to get a little philosophical we can't say what nature "is".

    So a "theory of everything", which I take to mean a unified theory that unites all the fundamental forces, certainly seems to be possible - but we'll never be able to prove it's true, merely say that as we further and further refine our experiments/observations we'll have a higher and higher degree of confidence in it's validity the more closely we see its predictions according with our observations.

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •