I’ve been having a look at Sabine Hossenfelder’s book “Existential Physics” (Dr. Hossenfelder is a member of the Foundational Questions Institute). A couple of paragraphs from Chapter 1 refer to FQI’s scientific director Max Tegmark and his MUH (Mathematical Universe Hypothesis). I quote –
“And yet physics isn’t math. Physics is a science and as such has the purpose of describing observations of natural phenomena. Yes, we use mathematics in physics, and plenty of that, as I’m sure you have noticed. But we do this not because we know the world is truly mathematics. It may be mathematics—this possibility is known as Platonism, but Platonism is a philosophical position, not a scientific one. All we can tell from observations is that math is useful to describe the world. That the world is math—rather than just being described by math—is an additional assumption. And because this additional assumption is unnecessary to explain what we observe, it’s not scientific.
“Frankly, I think Tegmark came up with the mathematical universe only to make sure everyone knows he is a seriously weird fellow. He was probably successful at that, but whatever his motivation, I will admit that to me the thought that reality is just a manifestation of absolute mathematical truths is a comforting belief. If it were so, then at least the world would make sense; it’s just that we don’t know or don’t understand the mathematics to make sense of it.”
To both comfort her and defend him, I’d like to propose some ideas which might help us to “understand the mathematics to make sense of (the world).” (see attached file) These ideas of mine were originally submitted to FQI’s latest essay contest. I thought they were on-topic but the Institute decided they were off-topic and had to be rejected. Dr Hossenfelder is a fan of Einstein and - to paraphrase the words of Dr David Drumlin (played by Tom Skerritt) in the 1997 sci-fi movie “Contact” – lovingly refers to him as Albert. Because of her fandom, I should point out that Albert has put in writing that scientific observation and experiment is necessarily restricted to one frame of reference - and are therefore limited in their ability to give us comprehensive understanding of the universe. Mathematician Kurt Godel’s Incompleteness Theorems of 1930 are thus extended to the full extent of our present science.
According to Special Relativity, experiments are overrated by modern science since the truths revealed by experimentation are necessarily restricted to one frame of reference. Regarding the question of length contraction in Special Relativity - Einstein wrote in 1911 that "It doesn't 'really' exist, in so far as it doesn't exist for a co-moving observer; though it 'really' exists, i.e. in such a way that it could be demonstrated in principle by physical means by a non-comoving observer."
Einstein (1911). "Zum Ehrenfestschen Paradoxon. Eine Bemerkung zu V. Variĉaks Aufsatz". Physikalische Zeitschrift 12: 509–510
Demonstration "in principle by physical means by a non-comoving observer" is the same meaning as "demonstration by experiments performed by scientists not moving at the speed of light".
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