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Despite provable unknowables in recursion theory, indeterminism and randomness in physics is confined to conventions, subjective beliefs and preliminary evidence. The history of the issue is very briefly reviewed, and answers to five…

History and Philosophy of Physics · Physics 2011-04-15 Karl Svozil

This text tries to give an elementary introduction to the mathematical properties of infinite sets. The aim is to keep the approach as simple as possible. Advanced knowledge of mathematics is not necessary for a proper understanding, and…

History and Overview · Mathematics 2015-06-23 Martin Meyries

Quantum mechanics, one of the most successful theories in the history of science, was created to account for physical systems not describable by classical physics. Though it is consistent with all experiments conducted thus far, many of its…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2016-02-17 Gary Oas , J. Acacio de Barros

Infinitary Combinatorics shows interesting contrasts, with many similarities but also several important differences with its finite analog. The purpose of this paper is to present some concrete examples, both of similarities and of radical…

The world of mathematics is often considered abstract, with its symbols, concepts, and topics appearing unrelated to physical objects. However, it is important to recognize that the development of mathematics is fundamentally influenced by…

General Physics · Physics 2023-06-08 Biao Wu

Our conventional understanding of space-time, as well as our notion of geometry, break down once we attempt to describe the very early stages of the evolution of our universe. The extreme physical conditions near the Big Bang necessitate an…

General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology · Physics 2014-07-16 Mairi Sakellariadou

A tradition handed down among physicists maintains that classical physics is a perfectly deterministic theory capable of predicting the future with absolute certainty, independently of any interpretations. It also tells that it was quantum…

History and Philosophy of Physics · Physics 2023-03-09 Flavio Del Santo

The concept of number is fundamental to the formulation of any physical theory. We give a heuristic motivation for the reformulation of Quantum Mechanics in terms of non-standard real numbers called Quantum Real Numbers. The standard axioms…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2007-05-23 John V Corbett , Thomas Durt

We introduce an approach to the foundations of physics that is more in line with the foundations of mathematics. The idea is to examine current theories and find a set of starting physical assumptions that are sufficient to rederive them,…

General Physics · Physics 2022-03-18 Gabriele Carcassi , Christine A. Aidala

Many physicists, following Einstein, believe that the ultimate aim of theoretical physics is to find a unified theory of all interactions which would not depend on any free dimensionless constant, i.e., a dimensionless constant that is only…

History and Philosophy of Physics · Physics 2015-09-15 Sebastian J. Szybka

Ultrafinitism postulates that we can only compute on relatively short objects, and numbers beyond certain value are not available. This approach would also forbid many forms of infinitary reasoning and allow to remove certain paradoxes…

Programming Languages · Computer Science 2024-08-22 Michał J. Gajda

Curiously overlooked in physics is its dependence on the transmission of numbers. For example the transmission of numerical clock readings is implicit in the concept of a coordinate system. The transmission of numbers and other logical…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2015-08-06 John M. Myers , F. Hadi Madjid

There are compelling historical and mathematical reasons why we ended up, among others in Physics, with using the scalars given by the real or the complex numbers. Recently, however, infinitely many easy to construct and use other algebras…

History and Overview · Mathematics 2007-05-23 Elemer E Rosinger

The theory of regularity is a philosophical perspective in which laws of nature are just descriptions, that is to say, laws of nature do not govern the world. Moreover, according to the theory of regularity, the number of laws of nature…

History and Philosophy of Physics · Physics 2024-03-05 Juliano C. S. Neves

More than a speculative technology, quantum computing seems to challenge our most basic intuitions about how the physical world should behave. In this thesis I show that, while some intuitions from classical computer science must be…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2007-05-23 Scott Aaronson

I present a novel mathematical technique for dealing with the infinities arising from divergent sums and integrals. It assigns them fine-grained infinite values from the set of hyperreal numbers in a manner that refines the standard…

General Mathematics · Mathematics 2025-10-28 Toby Ord

We look for a deep connection between mathematics and physics. Our approach is to propose a set theory T which leads to a concise mathematical description of physical fields and to a finite unit of action. The concept of "definability" of…

General Physics · Physics 2015-06-26 D. J. BenDaniel

Our assumption that spacetime is a continuum leads to many challenges in mathematical physics. Singularities, divergent integrals and the like threaten many of our favorite theories, from Newtonian gravity to classical electrodynamics,…

Mathematical Physics · Physics 2020-02-04 John C. Baez

The limited distinctness of physical systems is roughly expressed by uncertainty relations. Here we show distinctness is a finite resource we can exactly count to define basic physical quantities, limits to the resolution of space and time,…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2025-07-24 Norman Margolus

A perplexing problem in understanding physical reality is why the universe seems comprehensible, and correspondingly why there should exist physical systems capable of comprehending it. In this essay I explore the possibility that rather…

History and Philosophy of Physics · Physics 2015-11-10 Sara Imari Walker