4 ms·

Funny this showing up here -- fractons are one of the first things I came across in pursuing my strange belief that fundamental particles are manifestations of

Funny this showing up here -- fractons are one of the first things I came across in pursuing my strange belief that fundamental particles are manifestations of defects in some "space-time crystal". But where Seiberg says “Quantum field theory is a very delicate structure, so we would like to change the rules as little as possible,” -- I have the exact opposite view: we'll probably need to tear down the vast majority of mathematical structures that are the foundation of QFT and QM, and build from scratch on a discrete combinatorial foundation. Luckily doing that is turning out to be a lot of fun and involve some interesting new mathematical ideas. But more often old mathematical ideas, like curvature, holonomy, and gauge symmetry, but resurrected in new forms.

archibaldJ 5y ago
Intriguing. A more discrete combinatorial approach could imply a corresponding proximity to programming language theories and type theories. This may be a bit far-fetch, but is there any chance introduction of parser/intrepreter-like constructs can be of useful significance?
- tomsel 5y ago
  > A more discrete combinatorial approach could imply a corresponding proximity to programming language theories and type theories. I'm just curious, what theories are you talking about?
procgen 5y ago
This this is the approach that Stephen Wolfram's physics project is exploring. In their model, everything is made of space, and space is a hypergraph. https://www.wolframphysics.org/ https://www.wolframphysics.org/
- procgen 5y ago
  ...and I just read your bio - ha!
- jiggawatts 5y ago
  It isn't really. Wolfram's approach is relatively unique in that he bases it entirely on graphs alone, and no other structure. There are several hints in more "standard" physics that a possible TOE could be based a model where you can think of the "stuff" of the universe more like a crystal with defects.
  - procgen 5y ago
    A 'crystal with defects' sounds like a graph to me, but I'm only a dilettante.
  - galaxyLogic 5y ago
    Interesting. Then what is a "node" in a graph? What is made of? Could it be a graph?

archibaldJ 5y ago

Intriguing. A more discrete combinatorial approach could imply a corresponding proximity to programming language theories and type theories. This may be a bit far-fetch, but is there any chance introduction of parser/intrepreter-like constructs can be of useful significance?

tomsel 5y ago
> A more discrete combinatorial approach could imply a corresponding proximity to programming language theories and type theories. I'm just curious, what theories are you talking about?

procgen 5y ago

This this is the approach that Stephen Wolfram's physics project is exploring. In their model, everything is made of space, and space is a hypergraph. https://www.wolframphysics.org/ https://www.wolframphysics.org/

procgen 5y ago
...and I just read your bio - ha!
jiggawatts 5y ago
It isn't really. Wolfram's approach is relatively unique in that he bases it entirely on graphs alone, and no other structure. There are several hints in more "standard" physics that a possible TOE could be based a model where you can think of the "stuff" of the universe more like a crystal with defects.
- procgen 5y ago
  A 'crystal with defects' sounds like a graph to me, but I'm only a dilettante.
- galaxyLogic 5y ago
  Interesting. Then what is a "node" in a graph? What is made of? Could it be a graph?