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Some news items that grabbed our attention and may interest you and stimulate thought and debate.  Please comment but keep it respectful.

Proof the universe is more than maths

2/11/2025

1 Comment

 
Picture
A new mathematical proof shows the universe is based on more than mathematical calculations. 
     
Physicist Mir Faizal of the University of British Columbia led a team that not only showed we haven’t yet found a "Theory of Everything": they showed it is impossible. Many have tried to link Einstein’s General & Special Relativity to the mathematics of quantum physics. These accurately describe events in astronomy and events inside an atom, but linking them into a “Theory of Everything" has proved difficult. Faizal’s team point out the failure of string theory and loop quantum gravity etc before proving that all future theories will also fail.
    They showed that however future theories are created, they'll entail elements that are subject to Gödel's incompleteness theorem, Tarski's 1933 undefinability theorem, or Chaitin's incompleteness theorem. This means they can never be proved computationally.
    
This conclusion means that the universe is based on more than just calculations, and the future cannot be predicted from its present state alone. 
    
This prompts the question: If mathematical calculations don't determine exactly what happens in the future, then what (or who) does?

Article at
https://www.sciencealert.com/physicists-just-ruled-out-the-universe-being-a-simulation
and at https://news.ok.ubc.ca/2025/10/30/ubco-study-debunks-the-idea-that-the-universe-is-a-computer-simulation/
Paper at https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.22950


1 Comment
David Smith
3/11/2025 11:21:44 am

Without reading the paper itself I don't see anything that precludes a Theory of Everything more properly called the Grand Unified Field Theory. The reports of the article just say that as there is maths that don't have math proofs then the theory can't be put together. But I do not see how we know that this is the case; how do we know that this specifically is something that we can't determine?

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