4 ms·
Physics gave up being "deterministic" (in the sense you used the term in) about 120 years ago. And mathematics is just a convenient tool with which we describe
by _joe 9y ago
Physics gave up being "deterministic" (in the sense you used the term in) about 120 years ago.
And mathematics is just a convenient tool with which we describe reality, no one would seriously think today that our math is deeply inscribed in the essence of reality as Galileo thought.
Apart from this, and the fact that the paper shows a very weak statistical significance, I agree fully with your last statement.
- brucephillips 9y ago> the paper shows a very weak statistical significance How so? The p values are quite low.
- tempay 9y agoThey're not low enough to account for the look elsewhere effect[1] (known by a different name in this field, but the idea is the same). In this case they look at 500,000 measurements so finding p-values of 10⁻⁵/10⁻⁶ is expected. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Look-elsewhere_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Look-elsewhere_effect
- wyager 9y ago> no one would seriously think today that our math is deeply inscribed in the essence of reality This is straight up wrong; most physicists I know, regardless of subdiscipline, basically agree on some variation of the idea that reality is somehow underpinned by algebraic structures.
- excalibur 9y agoReality is just a convenient tool with which we can discern mathematics.