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Math is abstract, which means it 'rules' many different things by its very nature. You can describe the geometry of space-time with vectors just as well as you

by Retra 7y ago

Math is abstract, which means it 'rules' many different things by its very nature. You can describe the geometry of space-time with vectors just as well as you can describe quantum state transitions. It's hard to make sense of what your objection could be here; the world works the way it does, and it is not good or bad whether we can describe it using unified mathematical frameworks or not.

scotty79 7y ago
> You can describe the geometry of space-time with vectors just as well as you can describe quantum state transitions. I don't think that's true. Quantum description of gravity that has any aspirations to describe real world doesn't even get the math solid with irreducible infinites popping up everywhere. As they should. I just don't think shape of the spacetime is something that should be possible to quantize. It's just fundamentally different for me and expectation that it should be ruled by similar equations as other forces seems misguided.
- Retra 7y ago
  Classical physics and quantum mechanics are already unified by shared mathematical frameworks. So not only is it possible, it's already been done, which is why people expect it to work for gravity as well.
  - scotty79 7y ago
    Quantum mechanics is not so much unified with classical physics as it is more precise description of part of physics that degrades to clasical physics when you adjust parameters to get less detail. Same way GR is more precise description of ANOTHER part of classical physics that reduces to classical physics if you adjust some parameters. There's really no reason that GR should share with quantum model much more math than the simplest mathematical operations. Why unify GR with quantum and not for example fluid dynamics? GR and quantum field theory for me just describe completely different parts of physics. Sure it would be neat to know how world behaves when neither GR nor quantum is sufficient to predict what will happen but I just think it's way more likely that unified theory will be quantum model with relativistic terms not the quantum description of gravity.

by Retra 7y ago

scotty79 7y ago

> You can describe the geometry of space-time with vectors just as well as you can describe quantum state transitions. I don't think that's true. Quantum description of gravity that has any aspirations to describe real world doesn't even get the math solid with irreducible infinites popping up everywhere. As they should. I just don't think shape of the spacetime is something that should be possible to quantize. It's just fundamentally different for me and expectation that it should be ruled by similar equations as other forces seems misguided.

Retra 7y ago
Classical physics and quantum mechanics are already unified by shared mathematical frameworks. So not only is it possible, it's already been done, which is why people expect it to work for gravity as well.
- scotty79 7y ago
  Quantum mechanics is not so much unified with classical physics as it is more precise description of part of physics that degrades to clasical physics when you adjust parameters to get less detail. Same way GR is more precise description of ANOTHER part of classical physics that reduces to classical physics if you adjust some parameters. There's really no reason that GR should share with quantum model much more math than the simplest mathematical operations. Why unify GR with quantum and not for example fluid dynamics? GR and quantum field theory for me just describe completely different parts of physics. Sure it would be neat to know how world behaves when neither GR nor quantum is sufficient to predict what will happen but I just think it's way more likely that unified theory will be quantum model with relativistic terms not the quantum description of gravity.