7 ms·
Forces are mediated by fields (or particles, depends on your interpretation). If you want 4.5 forces, what does that .5 look like? Essentially, each force doe
by at_a_remove 5y ago
Forces are mediated by fields (or particles, depends on your interpretation). If you want 4.5 forces, what does that .5 look like?
Essentially, each force does describe a type of interaction. So what does one-third of a type look like?
- klodolph 5y agoWe used to think that electricity and magnetism were different types of interaction, but it turns out that they are more coherently described as a single “electromagnetic” force. The same may be true of other seemingly different forces: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Unified_Theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Unified_Theory
- at_a_remove 5y agoThis is a true statement, but it does not disprove anything I said. Before, we thought there were two. Now we know there are one. We do not say "one and a half."
- jakeinspace 5y agoSure, there might be 1 equation for 1 force. But that is a very different thing from a "spectrum" of forces.
- malwarebytess 5y agoMaybe something like fractional dimension in fractals. lol
- cybernautique 5y agohttps://www.quantamagazine.org/fractons-the-weirdest-matter-could-yield-quantum-clues-20210726/ https://www.quantamagazine.org/fractons-the-weirdest-matter-... I'm not conversant enough with physics to do more with this article than say "wow, that's cool!" and let my mind run into all sorts of fun science-fictional speculation... but wow! Fractals are cool, and fractals in _physics_ are _very_ cool!
- kordlessagain 5y agoRotating crystal fractals in a dielectric field!
- cybernautique 5y agoI'm not very knowledgeable of physics, but my intuition is that a fractional type should just be a type that falls between the characteristics of two integer types. So if A is the electromagnetic force and B is the strong nuclear force, A.5 should be some interaction that exhibits characteristics of both, is fully described by neither, yet exhibits no properties which can't be typified by some combination of the integer endpoints. Of course that raises the question of "shouldn't A.5 then just be considered its own type?" at which point I suppose we'd have to refer to how these "types" are constructed, which seems more like a mathematical/computational (ontological?) question than a purely physics question. Then, I suppose, the question further resolves to: which assumption makes our equations easier to work with? Please correct me if I'm entirely off-base.
- google234123 5y agoSorry, my view is that if you are not very knowledgeable in a subject then you probably shouldn't be coming up with new theories.
- ozzmotik 5y agothe act of coming up with hypotheses and then testing them is kinda how knowledge is generated, though. and often it can be effectively done by people who aren't thoroughly knowledgeable in a subject, especially as a means to becoming such
- google234123 5y agoNo, physics is more than just intuition and prose. We use formal language and notation in order maintain correctness.
- CuriouslyC 5y agoThe problem here is the conflation of "mathematical model" and "theory" in physics, which doesn't hold in general language. Physicists have gotten stuck on the idea that the math doesn't just predict reality, it "is" reality. In truth, a mathematical model can be perfectly correct and also nonsensical, just look at any neural network. A theory should really be an philosophical/ontological thing, and a model should be a mathematical thing.