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> Instead of describing the world in terms of trajectories, initial conditions and dynamical laws, in constructor theory laws are about which physical transform

by n4r9 5y ago

> Instead of describing the world in terms of trajectories, initial conditions and dynamical laws, in constructor theory laws are about which physical transformations are possible and which are impossible, and why. When I was a researcher, I was very interested in a conjecture that the existence of a class of reversible dynamics was enough to derive all of quantum theory. Colleagues and I published a result or two along these lines e.g. https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1367-2630/17/12/123001 https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1367-2630/17/12/1... This sounds similar although much broader perhaps.

gavinray 5y ago
I don't understand anything about this, or even basic physics, but I clicked on one of the videos on the page and the speaker used the terms "reversible dynamics" and "quantum" so I think you might be right? Timestamp is 00:00-02:15 in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Go2EO9l_L3o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Go2EO9l_L3o From one of the talks linked at the bottom, titled: "Interview with Maria Violaris. A short introduction to Constructor Theory’s application to irreversibility in homogeneisation machines." Sorry for poor punctuation, I copy-pasted from YouTube's transcript: [INTERVIEWER] what does it mean that the dynamical laws of physics are time reversible and specifically what does this mean in the context of quantum physics? [RESEARCHER] yeah so the the dynamical laws of physics being reversible is something that we see not just with quantum physics but also with normal classical physics with classical mechanics and electromagnetism. there's this property that when we look at the dynamical laws they don't distinguish between a process happening forward in time and the process happening backwards in time. so if we look at any system around us and we zoom into what's happening to the particles, and then if you played a video of them interacting forwards in time and you reversed it, the dynamical laws let us allow these interactions to happen both ways and times. ... [RESEARCHER] the way that happens in quantum theory specifically is that, any interaction that's allowed within quantum theory, the reverse interaction is also allowed within quantum theory. so any process that happens, that we use quantum mechanics to describe, then we can also use those equations to describe the reverse process happening. so that's how we see this -- this reversibility is a property inherent in the laws of quantum mechanics

by n4r9 5y ago

gavinray 5y ago

I don't understand anything about this, or even basic physics, but I clicked on one of the videos on the page and the speaker used the terms "reversible dynamics" and "quantum" so I think you might be right? Timestamp is 00:00-02:15 in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Go2EO9l_L3o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Go2EO9l_L3o From one of the talks linked at the bottom, titled: "Interview with Maria Violaris. A short introduction to Constructor Theory’s application to irreversibility in homogeneisation machines." Sorry for poor punctuation, I copy-pasted from YouTube's transcript: [INTERVIEWER] what does it mean that the dynamical laws of physics are time reversible and specifically what does this mean in the context of quantum physics? [RESEARCHER] yeah so the the dynamical laws of physics being reversible is something that we see not just with quantum physics but also with normal classical physics with classical mechanics and electromagnetism. there's this property that when we look at the dynamical laws they don't distinguish between a process happening forward in time and the process happening backwards in time. so if we look at any system around us and we zoom into what's happening to the particles, and then if you played a video of them interacting forwards in time and you reversed it, the dynamical laws let us allow these interactions to happen both ways and times. ... [RESEARCHER] the way that happens in quantum theory specifically is that, any interaction that's allowed within quantum theory, the reverse interaction is also allowed within quantum theory. so any process that happens, that we use quantum mechanics to describe, then we can also use those equations to describe the reverse process happening. so that's how we see this -- this reversibility is a property inherent in the laws of quantum mechanics