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December 24, 2019 - April 24, 2020
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What Is “Fundamental”
October 28, 2017 to January 22, 2018
Sponsored by the Fetzer Franklin Fund and The Peter & Patricia Gruber Foundation
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How can mindless mathematical laws give rise to aims and intention?
December 2, 2016 to March 3, 2017
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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
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How Should Humanity Steer the Future?
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Contest Partners: Jaan Tallinn, The Peter and Patricia Gruber Foundation, The John Templeton Foundation, and Scientific American
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It From Bit or Bit From It
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Questioning the Foundations
Which of Our Basic Physical Assumptions Are Wrong?
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Is Reality Digital or Analog?
November 2010 - February 2011
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What's Ultimately Possible in Physics?
May - October 2009
Contest Partners: Astrid and Bruce McWilliams
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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
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RECENT POSTS IN THIS TOPIC
Joe Fisher: on 4/9/15 at 15:41pm UTC, wrote Dear Heinrich, I think Newton was wrong about abstract gravity; Einstein...
Alan Kadin: on 3/21/15 at 15:30pm UTC, wrote Dear Mr. Luediger, I enjoyed reading your coherent history of the central...
John Hodge: on 3/11/15 at 19:22pm UTC, wrote You may note the discussion between Ojo and me in this contest. I ended by...
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Joe Fisher: on 4/9/15 at 15:41pm UTC, wrote Dear Heinrich, I think Newton was wrong about abstract gravity; Einstein...
Alan Kadin: on 3/21/15 at 15:30pm UTC, wrote Dear Mr. Luediger, I enjoyed reading your coherent history of the central...
John Hodge: on 3/11/15 at 19:22pm UTC, wrote You may note the discussion between Ojo and me in this contest. I ended by...
Heinrich Luediger: on 3/10/15 at 18:35pm UTC, wrote Essay Abstract In this essay I shall defend the thesis that physics...
RECENT FORUM POSTS
jim hughes: "I'm not a mathematician. So what I see here is some smart people who..." in Consciousness and the...
Steve Dufourny: "Hello FQXi, the members and all, I try to do my best to unite and convice..." in Global Collaboration
Lorraine Ford: "The idea of a smooth mathematical evolution of “the wave function”, and..." in Consciousness and the...
Georgina Woodward: "Broken machine: What do[es] I see next? The I that was, E.I, has not been..." in The Room in the Elephant:...
Lorraine Ford: "Hi Stefan, I hope that a good leader, and a good political party, is..." in The Present State of...
Lorraine Ford: "We live in an age of computing. But physics, mathematics and philosophy,..." in The Present State of...
Georgina Woodward: "I've copied the comment to the thread where it belongs. This orphan can be..." in The Room in the Elephant:...
Georgina Woodward: "Thank you John. What did you think about the questioning whether altitude..." in The Nature of Time
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FQXi FORUM
September 28, 2021
CATEGORY:
Trick or Truth Essay Contest (2015)
[back]
TOPIC: The Power and Poverty of Mathematics in Physics by Heinrich Hermann Luediger [refresh]
TOPIC: The Power and Poverty of Mathematics in Physics by Heinrich Hermann Luediger [refresh]
Essay Abstract
In this essay I shall defend the thesis that physics is about motion and that motion, as classical Greek philosophy has exhaustively demonstrated, is not tractable in any discrete domain of argument. For more than two millennia to come were Zeno’s Paradoxes respected as the collegial advice: Do not open this box! Physics, as the science of motion, came of age only with Newton’s fluxions and Leibniz’ differentials, which rather than dissolving the paradox of motion, escaped it. Arguments will be presented in support of the thesis that infinitesimal calculus was the reason for the literally un-reason-able effectiveness of mathematics in physics and that the ‘arithmetization of the continuum’, i.e. the ‘opening of the box’, turned physics from the science of motion back to the affirmative logic of states in historical time.
Author Bio
H.H.J. Luediger holds a Dipl. Ing. degree in telecommunications technologies and has a keen interest in the theory of science.
Download Essay PDF File
In this essay I shall defend the thesis that physics is about motion and that motion, as classical Greek philosophy has exhaustively demonstrated, is not tractable in any discrete domain of argument. For more than two millennia to come were Zeno’s Paradoxes respected as the collegial advice: Do not open this box! Physics, as the science of motion, came of age only with Newton’s fluxions and Leibniz’ differentials, which rather than dissolving the paradox of motion, escaped it. Arguments will be presented in support of the thesis that infinitesimal calculus was the reason for the literally un-reason-able effectiveness of mathematics in physics and that the ‘arithmetization of the continuum’, i.e. the ‘opening of the box’, turned physics from the science of motion back to the affirmative logic of states in historical time.
Author Bio
H.H.J. Luediger holds a Dipl. Ing. degree in telecommunications technologies and has a keen interest in the theory of science.
Download Essay PDF File
You may note the discussion between Ojo and me in this contest. I ended by rejecting the arithmetic of division as a characteristic of the universe. Division, like statistics, was invented by humans and has directed us away from the physics of the universe. This should, as Ojo suggested, restore your thesis of motion and the idea of cause-effect in natural physics and natural (discovered) math.
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Dear Mr. Luediger,
I enjoyed reading your coherent history of the central aspect of continuous motion in classical physics.
I agree. In my own essay "Remove the Blinders: How Mathematics Distorted the Development of Quantum Theory", I argue that continuous motion also applies to quantum physics on the microscopic level, contrary to what is generally believed. An electron is a real spin-quantized wave packet that follows a continuous trajectory in space, determined by constant frequency in the laboratory reference frame. Indeterminacy and entanglement are artifacts of an incorrect mathematical model. The same physics is present on both microscopic and macroscopic levels. What’s more, this realistic model is directly testable using little more than Stern-Gerlach magnets. The relevant experiments have never been reported.
Alan Kadin
report post as inappropriate
I enjoyed reading your coherent history of the central aspect of continuous motion in classical physics.
I agree. In my own essay "Remove the Blinders: How Mathematics Distorted the Development of Quantum Theory", I argue that continuous motion also applies to quantum physics on the microscopic level, contrary to what is generally believed. An electron is a real spin-quantized wave packet that follows a continuous trajectory in space, determined by constant frequency in the laboratory reference frame. Indeterminacy and entanglement are artifacts of an incorrect mathematical model. The same physics is present on both microscopic and macroscopic levels. What’s more, this realistic model is directly testable using little more than Stern-Gerlach magnets. The relevant experiments have never been reported.
Alan Kadin
Dear Heinrich,
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
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