If you are aware of an interesting new academic paper (that has been published in a peer-reviewed journal or has appeared on the arXiv), a conference talk (at an official professional scientific meeting), an external blog post (by a professional scientist) or a news item (in the mainstream news media), which you think might make an interesting topic for an FQXi blog post, then please contact us at forums@fqxi.org with a link to the original source and a sentence about why you think that the work is worthy of discussion. Please note that we receive many such suggestions and while we endeavour to respond to them, we may not be able to reply to all suggestions.
Please also note that we do not accept unsolicited posts and we cannot review, or open new threads for, unsolicited articles or papers. Requests to review or post such materials will not be answered. If you have your own novel physics theory or model, which you would like to post for further discussion among then FQXi community, then please add them directly to the "Alternative Models of Reality" thread, or to the "Alternative Models of Cosmology" thread. Thank you.
Please also note that we do not accept unsolicited posts and we cannot review, or open new threads for, unsolicited articles or papers. Requests to review or post such materials will not be answered. If you have your own novel physics theory or model, which you would like to post for further discussion among then FQXi community, then please add them directly to the "Alternative Models of Reality" thread, or to the "Alternative Models of Cosmology" thread. Thank you.
Contests Home
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
Forum Home
Introduction
Terms of Use
RSS feed | RSS help
Introduction
Terms of Use
Posts by the author are highlighted in orange; posts by FQXi Members are highlighted in blue.
By using the FQXi Forum, you acknowledge reading and agree to abide by the Terms of Use RSS feed | RSS help
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...
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
Steve Dufourny: "I have studied several papers about the renormalization of conformal..." in 16th Marcel Grossmann...
Steve Dufourny: "Yang Mills squared and quadrupoles, For this quantum gravitation..." in 16th Marcel Grossmann...
Steve Dufourny: "One of the important solution that I propose for the UN is ecological and..." in Global Collaboration
Amrit Ladhani : "My preprint "The Beginning to the End of the Universe and Eternal..." in Alternative Models of...
Steve Dufourny: "It could be very relevant if FQXi make a kind of essay contest for this..." in Global Collaboration
Steve Dufourny: "I read my posts from the past on FQXi, my english which is not of course..." in Alternative Models of...
Ronnie Wassler: "DNA is the origin of the universe. We have 3 distinct brains, Left..." in Alternative Models of...
Michael Wade: "history dissertation help" in Causal Discovery in the...
RECENT ARTICLES
click titles to read articles
Quanthoven's Fifth
A quantum computer composes chart-topping music, programmed by physicists striving to understand consciousness.
The Math of Consciousness: Q&A with Kobi Kremnitzer
A meditating mathematician is developing a theory of conscious experience to help understand the boundary between the quantum and classical world.
Can We Feel What It’s Like to Be Quantum?
Underground experiments in the heart of the Italian mountains are testing the links between consciousness and collapse theories of quantum physics.
The Thermodynamic Limits of Intelligence: Q&A with David Wolpert
Calculating the energy needed to acquire and compute information could help explain the (in)efficiency of human brains and guide the search for extra-terrestrial intelligence.
Gambling Against the Second Law
Using precision thermometry to make mini heat engines, that might, momentarily, bust through the thermodynamic limit.
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
Steve Dufourny: "I have studied several papers about the renormalization of conformal..." in 16th Marcel Grossmann...
Steve Dufourny: "Yang Mills squared and quadrupoles, For this quantum gravitation..." in 16th Marcel Grossmann...
Steve Dufourny: "One of the important solution that I propose for the UN is ecological and..." in Global Collaboration
Amrit Ladhani : "My preprint "The Beginning to the End of the Universe and Eternal..." in Alternative Models of...
Steve Dufourny: "It could be very relevant if FQXi make a kind of essay contest for this..." in Global Collaboration
Steve Dufourny: "I read my posts from the past on FQXi, my english which is not of course..." in Alternative Models of...
Ronnie Wassler: "DNA is the origin of the universe. We have 3 distinct brains, Left..." in Alternative Models of...
Michael Wade: "history dissertation help" in Causal Discovery in the...
RECENT ARTICLES
click titles to read articles
Quanthoven's Fifth
A quantum computer composes chart-topping music, programmed by physicists striving to understand consciousness.
The Math of Consciousness: Q&A with Kobi Kremnitzer
A meditating mathematician is developing a theory of conscious experience to help understand the boundary between the quantum and classical world.
Can We Feel What It’s Like to Be Quantum?
Underground experiments in the heart of the Italian mountains are testing the links between consciousness and collapse theories of quantum physics.
The Thermodynamic Limits of Intelligence: Q&A with David Wolpert
Calculating the energy needed to acquire and compute information could help explain the (in)efficiency of human brains and guide the search for extra-terrestrial intelligence.
Gambling Against the Second Law
Using precision thermometry to make mini heat engines, that might, momentarily, bust through the thermodynamic limit.
FQXi FORUM
August 11, 2022
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.
report post as inappropriate
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
Login or create account to post reply or comment.