/sci/ - Science & Math

You're correct.
Most peoples philosophy of science is, at best, Occam's razor.
Even if smallest particles exist, there's no logical hindrance of the scenario that each of them behave in their own unique way. Of course, then, by definition, we could never capture this in math. So it's not a nice picture. It's also not very useful to consider it.
What's surely true is that assuming there's a logic to how things function has turned out fruitful and there's little in the way to think that there's something True to combinatorics and statistic. And those frameworks seem to imply you can average out stuff from things that have at least somewhat of a coherent structure of behavior and "that's why" statistical physics works.
It's however not a given that there's any rule to physics that can necessarily be captured in math to fine precision.

If you take QED in the context of the standard model, is there a lower bound to the one-photon energy (frequency)?

As far as I can see QED alone doesn't restrict the eigenstate frequency, but does there arise any gap once you couple the photon field to the rest of the standard model?

>>8217984
ad.: He then asked me to give him more references to people and here is what I answered - might be of interest to others as well:

I doubt you'll find someone more willing to work towards that that Wildberger, but I can give you a few directions I deem relevant.


A more well known living historian of mathematics is Leo Corry, who notably wrote


- Modern algebra and the rise of mathematical structures (90's)

- David Hilbert and the Axiomatization of Physics (00's)

- A Brief History of Numbers (last year)

The two guys I mentioned in the last mail are the ones where I know the take a fairly dogmatic standpoint - one which I personally don't find sensible.

There are people, though, who happen to work at foundations that are neither setty nor too much informed by algebraic geometry folks related to the Bourbaki's.


Depending on how much you know about the history of formal logic, I urge you to read the two answers here* and here**. The first major step post Frege towards constructive approaches is outlined here***. And then the Russian school of constrictivism is notable.

As outlined above, that path was then overtaken by computer scientists and the bulk of mathematicans don't care. Type theorists do constructive stuff, or at least know exactly when they leave the constructive setting by adjoining non-constructive elements to their systems.

https://plus.google.com/+AndrejBauer/posts

Hope that helps
*
http://philosophy.stackexchange.com/questions/2617/how-did-first-order-logic-come-to-be-the-dominant-formal-logic
**
http://philosophy.stackexchange.com/questions/3318/is-first-order-logic-fol-the-only-fundamental-logic?rq=1
***
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brouwer–Hilbert_controversy