Wednesday 4 October 2006

Variably imutable rules

Re: "Never say Always" - New Scientist (23/sept/2006-p31)

The main idea communicated in this long article seems to be: how can we be sure that any 'laws' of physics are true in eternity? Therefore the implicitly accepted notion, that physics can and is working towards actual, fundamental laws that govern everything at all times, may be flawed. Perhaps a setup which more closely mirrors evolution of life will turn out more appropriate (though, quite how this would work is not discussed).

Personally, i think this idea seems quite powerful. It has at least helped me to question the validity of my perceptions ultimate theories. Good, as doubt is always appropriate in my opinion. I felt that the current form of physics seems messy, incomplete and sometimes unnecessary throughout my BSc at Nottingham (though, that could be biased by my apparent inability to latch on to what was being taught - memorisation of abstract maths formulas coming from unclear and mostly arbitrary derivation, so it seemed). Evolution, however, is clearly evident and powerfully simple!

A concept of physical laws being evolved is forwarded. The physics laws we currently experience would then be equivalent to the 'law' of sexual selection, or such like, in a parallel to natural selection. Here, the matter in the universe would interact and determine the course and nature of the evolution of the physical laws that in turn govern it's behaviour. The Stumbling block that is brought up several times in the article, but never resolved, is the question of what laws then govern the evolution of the laws themselves?!...

Like asking: what came before the big bang? What caused it?! This my be an out of context question, that appears to flaw the idea, but only because it come from certain working assumptions of human minds that are not appropriate. I.e. there was no 'before' the 'Big Bang' as time was created at that time also.

No comments:

Post a Comment

I'm very happy to see comments, but I need to filter out spam. :-)