Check your subscription status, update your details and more. Columnist Karmela Padavic-Callaghan takes a look at an effort to reverse this and rebuild the laws of physics from the maths up There’s a bit of an open secret in physics. Even when our theories work well – and some have been rigorously tested for centuries – we don’t always fully understand them.
We start with experimental evidence, then build mathematical models and theories, test and update them with more experiments and hope that it all adds up. But were a mathematician to ask what a theory we built this way is – that is, what type of well-defined mathematical objects comprise it – that isn’t a question that researchers can always fully answer. Topics:Mathematics / Physics / Quantum physics / Quantum theory Receive a weekly dose of discovery in your inbox.
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