MarvinMouse's Journal: End of Physics, Math, Science...

I just feel like talking about some discussions I have been having with physicists, mathematicians, and logicians lately.

It seems that the ancient search for ultimate truth has been sidetracked and replaced with the search for the most statistically significant truth. :-) Yet all of this just confuses everything. I keep hearing that we are nearing the end of physics, we almost have all of the main theories united, and understand everything.

The physicists usually point towards the superstring theory. I will admit, I am amazed by its apparent simplicity from a distance. The universe is made up of small strings that each vibrate at a certain frequency. Easy, eh?

Wrong...

As the theory evolved, the universe began to be made up of membranes of all sorts of dimensions(m-branes), different topological strings, dimensions up to and beyond 9 dimensions, interesting toplogies for all of these spaces, and just a huge mess of muck. Now officially known as M-theory.

And the funniest thing about all of this will be when they are done, there will be one more question remaining. What are the membranes made of. Can we predict their properties, why do they have these properties, etc.

Hmm... Sounds familiar... Does anyone know about Godel's incompleteness theorem? A vital theorem in mathematics that basically shattered all of our dreams of math being the ultimate truth, or even the way to find the ultimate truth easily. The theorem states (in somewhat technical terms) that "any formal system that is interesting enough to formulate its own consistency can prove its own consistency iff it is inconsistent. (Wolfram)" Which sounds really funny. But what happens is that. No matter how much we know, no matter how much we can prove about a system, it must be inconsistent (if we can prove it is consistent.)

It's quite hard to explain, but basically, this means that no matter how much we know about a system and how many axioms and proofs we have. There will always be an problem that can never be solved. (Sound familiar?)

Now, we go back to M-theory. I think this is a great theory, and will be useful if it can be completely proven, and will lead to some good new discoveries. But, it won't be the end of physics, there will always be questions that remain, and new axioms will need to be created to explain those questions. Interestingly enough, this is a refreshing note for the theoretical physicists out there, and as a mathematician, all I have to say to them is welcome to the world of mathematics. :-)

Now moving on to the next big thing that is popping up; Cellular Automata.

I don't even know where I should start on this one. First, unless it provides a way to predict future events that is more accurate, or more easier then modern science, it becomes another mathematical curiousity again.

Albeit the random number generator(Rule 30) looks fascinating. I hate to point out that it is still just a Pseudo-Random number generator (just to the people who may have missed that). If I run that through the same rules, we get the same numbers. Therefore, all we are seeing is a chaotic system based on recursion. I wouldn't be surprised if this system could be reduced to a similar problem in Chaos theory by converting the rules into a function and the points into a binary number. I may take a look at that myself and see where it leads.

Now, we go, "But, what about all of the other things he talks about, like the similarities to nature?" Well, these are bound to happen. Math, computation are always very similar to nature, for one very good reason. Math is based on nature, whether we wish to admit it or not. Math may be an "innatural science (Feynman)," but that doesn't mean Math doesn't have its roots in nature, and therefore you are bound to find patterns in it (Look up Ramsey Theory) that are meaningless, they just have to exist.

All I say is that people need to serious think about these huge, godlike statements people make before they accept them at face value. It's very rare that one person can change everything, and commonly that person is too busy changing everything to realize what s/he is doing.