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Current Essay Contest
Contest Partners: Nanotronics Imaging, The Peter and Patricia Gruber Foundation, and The John Templeton Foundation
Media Partner: Scientific American
Previous Contests
Undecidability, Uncomputability, and Unpredictability Essay Contest
December 24, 2019 - April 24, 2020
Contest Partners: Fetzer Franklin Fund, and The Peter and Patricia Gruber Foundation
read/discuss • winners
What Is “Fundamental”
October 28, 2017 to January 22, 2018
Sponsored by the Fetzer Franklin Fund and The Peter & Patricia Gruber Foundation
read/discuss • winners
Wandering Towards a Goal
How can mindless mathematical laws give rise to aims and intention?
December 2, 2016 to March 3, 2017
Contest Partner: The Peter and Patricia Gruber Fund.
read/discuss • winners
Trick or Truth: The Mysterious Connection Between Physics and Mathematics
Contest Partners: Nanotronics Imaging, The Peter and Patricia Gruber Foundation, and The John Templeton Foundation
Media Partner: Scientific American
read/discuss • winners
How Should Humanity Steer the Future?
January 9, 2014 - August 31, 2014
Contest Partners: Jaan Tallinn, The Peter and Patricia Gruber Foundation, The John Templeton Foundation, and Scientific American
read/discuss • winners
It From Bit or Bit From It
March 25 - June 28, 2013
Contest Partners: The Gruber Foundation, J. Templeton Foundation, and Scientific American
read/discuss • winners
Questioning the Foundations
Which of Our Basic Physical Assumptions Are Wrong?
May 24 - August 31, 2012
Contest Partners: The Peter and Patricia Gruber Foundation, SubMeta, and Scientific American
read/discuss • winners
Is Reality Digital or Analog?
November 2010 - February 2011
Contest Partners: The Peter and Patricia Gruber Foundation and Scientific American
read/discuss • winners
What's Ultimately Possible in Physics?
May - October 2009
Contest Partners: Astrid and Bruce McWilliams
read/discuss • winners
The Nature of Time
August - December 2008
read/discuss • winners
Current Essay Contest
Contest Partners: Nanotronics Imaging, The Peter and Patricia Gruber Foundation, and The John Templeton Foundation
Media Partner: Scientific American
Previous Contests
Undecidability, Uncomputability, and Unpredictability Essay Contest
December 24, 2019 - April 24, 2020
Contest Partners: Fetzer Franklin Fund, and The Peter and Patricia Gruber Foundation
read/discuss • winners
What Is “Fundamental”
October 28, 2017 to January 22, 2018
Sponsored by the Fetzer Franklin Fund and The Peter & Patricia Gruber Foundation
read/discuss • winners
Wandering Towards a Goal
How can mindless mathematical laws give rise to aims and intention?
December 2, 2016 to March 3, 2017
Contest Partner: The Peter and Patricia Gruber Fund.
read/discuss • winners
Trick or Truth: The Mysterious Connection Between Physics and Mathematics
Contest Partners: Nanotronics Imaging, The Peter and Patricia Gruber Foundation, and The John Templeton Foundation
Media Partner: Scientific American
read/discuss • winners
How Should Humanity Steer the Future?
January 9, 2014 - August 31, 2014
Contest Partners: Jaan Tallinn, The Peter and Patricia Gruber Foundation, The John Templeton Foundation, and Scientific American
read/discuss • winners
It From Bit or Bit From It
March 25 - June 28, 2013
Contest Partners: The Gruber Foundation, J. Templeton Foundation, and Scientific American
read/discuss • winners
Questioning the Foundations
Which of Our Basic Physical Assumptions Are Wrong?
May 24 - August 31, 2012
Contest Partners: The Peter and Patricia Gruber Foundation, SubMeta, and Scientific American
read/discuss • winners
Is Reality Digital or Analog?
November 2010 - February 2011
Contest Partners: The Peter and Patricia Gruber Foundation and Scientific American
read/discuss • winners
What's Ultimately Possible in Physics?
May - October 2009
Contest Partners: Astrid and Bruce McWilliams
read/discuss • winners
The Nature of Time
August - December 2008
read/discuss • winners
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RECENT POSTS IN THIS TOPIC
Branko Zivlak: on 4/14/15 at 9:01am UTC, wrote Dear Chidi, I think the ultimate solution for Physics, is the theory of...
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Chidi Idika: on 3/16/15 at 23:00pm UTC, wrote Thank you, Mr Fisher, for reading this essay. Its been rather quite in...
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Branko Zivlak: on 4/14/15 at 9:01am UTC, wrote Dear Chidi, I think the ultimate solution for Physics, is the theory of...
Joe Fisher: on 4/8/15 at 15:49pm UTC, wrote Dear Chidi, I think Newton was wrong about abstract gravity; Einstein was...
Chidi Idika: on 3/16/15 at 23:00pm UTC, wrote Thank you, Mr Fisher, for reading this essay. Its been rather quite in...
Joe Fisher: on 3/16/15 at 19:23pm UTC, wrote Dear Mr. Idika, I thought that your piquant English essay was...
Chidi Idika: on 3/13/15 at 23:28pm UTC, wrote And, just in case you missed it, I make the deceptively simple argument...
Chidi Idika: on 3/13/15 at 22:55pm UTC, wrote Hello good people, Permit me to apologize here for the typos and other...
Chidi Idika: on 3/10/15 at 15:38pm UTC, wrote Essay Abstract I argue here that a great deal can be explained...
RECENT FORUM POSTS
Marcel-Marie LeBel: "Georgina, There is no instantaneity along the rod or within the coffee. It..." in The Nature of Time
Stefan Weckbach: "Hi Lorraine, thanks for your explanations. I think I now better..." in The Present State of...
Georgina Woodward: "Consider ice cream in hot coffee. They stay together, 'in time', as..." in The Nature of Time
Mykel Waggoner: "This is a link to a paper I wrote, as it explains how Quantum Entanglement..." in Alternative Models of...
Lorraine Ford: "Hi Stefan, Replying to your last couple of posts, this is the way I would..." in The Present State of...
Robert McEachern: ""There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in..." in Undecidability,...
Georgina Woodward: "Max? Why?" in Anatomy of spacetime and...
Steve Agnew: "Mueller opens his essay with... "As the argument goes, there are truths..." in Undecidability,...
RECENT ARTICLES
click titles to read articles
The Quantum Clock-Maker Investigating COVID-19, Causality, and the Trouble with AI
Sally Shrapnel, a quantum physicist and medical practitioner, on her experiments into cause-and-effect that could help us understand time’s arrow—and build better healthcare algorithms.
Connect the Quantum Dots for a New Kind of Fuel
'Artificial atoms' allow physicists to manipulate individual electrons—and could help to reduce energy wastage in electronic devices.
Can Choices Curve Spacetime?
Two teams are developing ways to detect quantum-gravitational effects in the lab.
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FQXi FORUM
September 21, 2021
CATEGORY:
Trick or Truth Essay Contest (2015)
[back]
TOPIC: Observer as the mathematician’s “constant” and the physicist’s “quantum”. by Chidi Idika [refresh]
TOPIC: Observer as the mathematician’s “constant” and the physicist’s “quantum”. by Chidi Idika [refresh]
Essay Abstract
I argue here that a great deal can be explained about the tango between physics and mathematics just by comparing and contrasting the foundational issues in both. Issues captured by the Peano axioms in mathematics versus quantum theory in physics. Both these “foundations” are concerned with developing, in my view, a generic notion of the reference frame/initial condition and by extension describing the dynamics of its evolution/devolution. I claim precisely that while the Peano axioms represent this state as the “constant” (number bases) quantum theory represents it as the “wave function” (quantum of observables). Crucially, both foundations agree that this state is the threshold of events. Indeed both foundations insist that one thing a threshold is not is the event proper i.e. an observable. Strangely this picture is in line with Pythagoras’ assertion that: all that exist is sound (think, “spins” or wave packets as signifying the natural numbers; observables) vis-à-vis the “fundamental”/number bases (if wave function) as signifying the observer proper. It is my conclusion that this collective picture can indeed go one notch up to become our theory of quantum gravity in that it supplies the basic testable postulate that: we being the observer in question our sensory threshold (mind) is then our proper quantum of observables/natural unit. Meaning, quantum gravity likely will be man’s best instance ever of the indistinguishableness of mathematics and physics.
Author Bio
I hold a B.A. Honours in Mass Communication from the University of Nigeria, Nsukka. I also hold the personal conviction that a question well put is to all minds a call to duty.
Download Essay PDF File
I argue here that a great deal can be explained about the tango between physics and mathematics just by comparing and contrasting the foundational issues in both. Issues captured by the Peano axioms in mathematics versus quantum theory in physics. Both these “foundations” are concerned with developing, in my view, a generic notion of the reference frame/initial condition and by extension describing the dynamics of its evolution/devolution. I claim precisely that while the Peano axioms represent this state as the “constant” (number bases) quantum theory represents it as the “wave function” (quantum of observables). Crucially, both foundations agree that this state is the threshold of events. Indeed both foundations insist that one thing a threshold is not is the event proper i.e. an observable. Strangely this picture is in line with Pythagoras’ assertion that: all that exist is sound (think, “spins” or wave packets as signifying the natural numbers; observables) vis-à-vis the “fundamental”/number bases (if wave function) as signifying the observer proper. It is my conclusion that this collective picture can indeed go one notch up to become our theory of quantum gravity in that it supplies the basic testable postulate that: we being the observer in question our sensory threshold (mind) is then our proper quantum of observables/natural unit. Meaning, quantum gravity likely will be man’s best instance ever of the indistinguishableness of mathematics and physics.
Author Bio
I hold a B.A. Honours in Mass Communication from the University of Nigeria, Nsukka. I also hold the personal conviction that a question well put is to all minds a call to duty.
Download Essay PDF File
Hello good people,
Permit me to apologize here for the typos and other glaring short comings in this essay. Submission deadline, hardly a good excuse, yet is the excuse. Asking that you can get past them to the essential arguments.
Chidi
Permit me to apologize here for the typos and other glaring short comings in this essay. Submission deadline, hardly a good excuse, yet is the excuse. Asking that you can get past them to the essential arguments.
Chidi
And, just in case you missed it, I make the deceptively simple argument that mathematics is exactly physics only by the extent the mathematician's number bases ("constant") is interpreted to mean strictly the physicist's quantum of observables such that the observables proper are the "natural numbers".
The term observer means simply then the "natural unit". Therefore, conversely, to miss the natural unit is to set the physics and the mathematics worlds apart.
Your frank comments are invited.
The term observer means simply then the "natural unit". Therefore, conversely, to miss the natural unit is to set the physics and the mathematics worlds apart.
Your frank comments are invited.
Dear Mr. Idika,
I thought that your piquant English essay was exceptionally well written and I do hope that it fares well in the competition.
Warm Regards,
Joe Fisher
report post as inappropriate
I thought that your piquant English essay was exceptionally well written and I do hope that it fares well in the competition.
Warm Regards,
Joe Fisher
Thank you, Mr Fisher, for reading this essay. Its been rather quite in here. And I expect questions.
All the best in the contest.
Chidi
All the best in the contest.
Chidi
Dear Chidi,
I think Newton was wrong about abstract gravity; Einstein was wrong about abstract space/time, and Hawking was wrong about the explosive capability of NOTHING.
All I ask is that you give my essay WHY THE REAL UNIVERSE IS NOT MATHEMATICAL a fair reading and that you allow me to answer any objections you may leave in my comment box about it.
Joe Fisher
report post as inappropriate
I think Newton was wrong about abstract gravity; Einstein was wrong about abstract space/time, and Hawking was wrong about the explosive capability of NOTHING.
All I ask is that you give my essay WHY THE REAL UNIVERSE IS NOT MATHEMATICAL a fair reading and that you allow me to answer any objections you may leave in my comment box about it.
Joe Fisher
Dear Chidi,
I think the ultimate solution for Physics, is the theory of numbers. We must be realistic; it will not be long reached.
You are on the right track. Thus, I am going to give you the high score. I'd like you to comment on simple math in my essay (only 7 mathematical operations).
Regards,
Branko
report post as inappropriate
I think the ultimate solution for Physics, is the theory of numbers. We must be realistic; it will not be long reached.
You are on the right track. Thus, I am going to give you the high score. I'd like you to comment on simple math in my essay (only 7 mathematical operations).
Regards,
Branko
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