Yer cannae change the laws of physics, Jim!
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Your assertions presume that "The laws of physics" includes a complete description of the entire how the universe world. By Godel's incompleteness theorem, this is not possible. QED. Cheer, Will.
wamckee wrote:
Godel's incompleteness theorem
But presumably you'd first have to prove the theorem is correct ... Rich
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Independent123 wrote:
I don't believe anarchy is the solution to war.
Them's fightin' words! :mad:
Citizen 20.1.01
'The question is,' said Humpty Dumpty, 'which is to be master - that's all.'
Shog9 wrote:
Independent123 wrote: I don't believe anarchy is the solution to war
<blockquote class="FQ"><div class="FQA">Shog9 wrote:</div> Them's fightin' words! </blockquote> Precisely so...as anarchy is simply another way of expressing Hobbes's concept of the war of all against all. Any organized decision-making process inclusive of more than one person negates the state of pure anarchy which, like a pure vaccum, is a state never to be seen in nature beyond a very local point of view.
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- The laws of physics are the same, everywhere in the universe
- The laws of physics do not change
Does anyone have any proof of either of these statements or are they assumptions?
The answer depends on your world view: a) Materialism, i.e. there is no God: No, your 1) and 2) cannot be proven, they are considered constant only because our observations and experiments agree with them being constant (currently and viewed from earth), however, there is no logical reason why this invariance should continue in the future. b) Christian Theism, i.e. there is a God and He intended for people to live on earth and to be able to figure out that we are here for a purpose. Yes, your 1) and 2) can at least be assumed, because the laws of physics are extremely finely tuned to allow life to exist ( http://www.leaderu.com/science/ross-justright.html ), and being tuned by God makes it logical that they stay the way they are, i.e. something that was carefully built stays the way it is. It would only change if the builder makes revisions.
But... "with God all things are possible" so He could change things around on a whim. The Earth may once have been flat. The Sun may have revolved around the Earth. Dinosaur fossils may have been planted. You just can't trust someone like that. :-D
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wamckee wrote:
Godel's incompleteness theorem
But presumably you'd first have to prove the theorem is correct ... Rich
Rich Leyshon wrote:
But presumably you'd first have to prove the theorem is correct ...
It was in 1931 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6del's_incompleteness_theorems[^]
You know, every time I tried to win a bar-bet about being able to count to 1000 using my fingers I always got punched out when I reached 4.... -- El Corazon
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Our current understanding of the universe only works if these laws stay the same. But even then i'm pretty sure the physicists bend the laws quite a bit to explain alot of strange stuff.
My current favourite word is: I'm starting to run out of fav. words!
-SK Genius
(Read: Mark McCutcheon - The Final Theory)
"Silently laughing at silly people is much more satisfying in the long run than rolling around with them in a dusty street, trying to knock out all their teeth. If nothing else, it's better on the clothes." - Belgarath (David Eddings)
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gasoline wouldnt be there but there would be something equivalent which caused the war. People have been fighting for materialistic things all over the history.
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Rich Leyshon wrote:
But presumably you'd first have to prove the theorem is correct ...
It was in 1931 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6del's_incompleteness_theorems[^]
You know, every time I tried to win a bar-bet about being able to count to 1000 using my fingers I always got punched out when I reached 4.... -- El Corazon
Well, it's still a theorem rather than a law - suggesting it isn't proven. If it is correct then it may be that a theory of everything can never be produced. But does this have a bearing on the original question? It was not so much one of our ability to describe everything but rather, is it provable that the evrything has always been and will always remain the same everywhere. Cheers, Rich
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Back in the days when I went to school, when the world was black and white and young ragamuffins spent their days acquiring soot stains from their travels up and down chimneys, I was taught the following: 1) The laws of physics are the same, everywhere in the universe 2) The laws of physics do not change Does anyone have any proof of either of these statements or are they assumptions? Rich
If the law changes, then we had it wrong to begin with, and thus it is only our understanding of the law that changes. If it is not the same everywhere, regardless of space or time then its not an absolute law. The whole point of a having a law of physics is for the purpose you mentioned, it is the same everywhere, regardless of time or space, and it does not change, ever. if this can not hold true then there are simply no laws! (this is not equivalent to anarchy though) It is our understanding that changes, not the truth itself. That being said our documented understanding is not correct, take the 2nd law of thermo dynamics, the first qualifing phrases "in a closed system" and "in equilibrium" these are 2 conditions that have never been proven to exist so whats the point? you cannot achieve equilibrium, because you can not close any system from the rest of the universe, just as you cannot reach absolute zero. only a perfect vacuum at absolute zero would satisfy these conditions and no such thing has ever been observed, nor has anyone thought that we could observe such a thing. The statements above: 1) The laws of physics are the same, everywhere in the universe 2) The laws of physics do not change are actually definitions of the term 'law of physics' and it is true because we say it is, that is what a 'definition' is. But what we say the actual laws are, well thats just clever guess work.
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Back in the days when I went to school, when the world was black and white and young ragamuffins spent their days acquiring soot stains from their travels up and down chimneys, I was taught the following: 1) The laws of physics are the same, everywhere in the universe 2) The laws of physics do not change Does anyone have any proof of either of these statements or are they assumptions? Rich
Yes, Rich, I have proof of both of those statements. I assume that you would now like to "see" or "hear" the proof? Okay, then please send 5$ and a self addressed stamped envelope to...... :-) yuk! yuk! yuk!
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Back in the days when I went to school, when the world was black and white and young ragamuffins spent their days acquiring soot stains from their travels up and down chimneys, I was taught the following: 1) The laws of physics are the same, everywhere in the universe 2) The laws of physics do not change Does anyone have any proof of either of these statements or are they assumptions? Rich
Read Powers of Ten. The laws of physics are thought to have mutated since the beginning. I don't know if any more mutation is predicted though. It's a bit like trying to imagine infinity or more than 3 dimensions (apparently infinity exists and there are 11 dimensions in our universe). At what point in time/space does 1 + 1 = 433? Or does it ever? And at that point, would we realize the laws had changed? What if time stood still? We wouldn't really know it would we? I'm going to go take my thorazine now.
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Our current understanding of the universe only works if these laws stay the same. But even then i'm pretty sure the physicists bend the laws quite a bit to explain alot of strange stuff.
My current favourite word is: I'm starting to run out of fav. words!
-SK Genius