
A Meta-Law to Rule Them All: Physicists Devise a “Theory of Everything” - happyscrappy
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/a-meta-law-to-rule-them-all-physicists-devise-a-theory-of-everything/
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joaorico
Feynman [1]: "Let us show you something interesting that we have recently
discovered: All of the laws of physics can be contained in one equation. That
equation is

U = 0.

What a simple equation! Of course, it is necessary to know what the symbol
means. U is a physical quantity which we will call the “unworldliness” of the
situation. And we have a formula for it. Here is how you calculate the
unworldliness. You take all of the known physical laws and write them in a
special form. For example, suppose you take the law of mechanics, F = ma , and
rewrite it as F − ma = 0. Then you can call (F − ma) — which should, of
course, be zero — the “mismatch” of mechanics. Next, you take the square of
this mismatch and call it U_1 , which can be called the “unworldliness of
mechanical eﬀects.” In other words, you take U_1 = (F − ma)^2.

[...]

You continue to write U_3 , U_4 , and so on—one for every physical law there
is. Finally you call the total unworldliness U of the world the sum of the
various unworldlinesses U_i from all the subphenomena that are involved; that
is, U = SUM (U_i). Then the great “law of nature” is

U = 0. (25.32)

This “law” means, of course, that the sum of the squares of all the individual
mismatches is zero, and the only way the sum of a lot of squares can be zero
is for each one of the terms to be zero.

So the “beautifully simple” law in Eq. (25.32) is equivalent to the whole
series of equations that you originally wrote down. It is therefore absolutely
obvious that a simple notation that just hides the complexity in the
definitions of symbols is not real simplicity. It is just a trick . The beauty
that appears in Eq. (25.32)—just from the fact that several equations are
hidden within it—is no more than a trick. When you unwrap the whole thing, you
get back where you were before."

[1] Feynman R, Leighton R, and Sands M. The Feynman Lectures on Physics.
Volume 2, chapter 25, page 10.

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pavlov
_According to constructor theory, the most fundamental components of reality
are entities—“constructors”—that perform particular tasks, accompanied by a
set of laws that define which tasks are actually possible for a constructor to
carry out._

More generally, we could call these entities "objects", the tasks that they
perform "methods" and the set of laws that define the available methods
"interfaces".

There, the grand unified theory of object-oriented software design and quantum
gravity!

Einstein would never have guessed that the universe is written in Enterprise
Java.

~~~
twic
So, if i understand you correctly, what you're saying is that the arrow of
time is defined as the direction in which Oracle licenses expire?

~~~
comela
yes

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eevilspock
Isn't this essentially the approach Einstein took? He basically added a new
"constructor", "the relative speed of light is the same for all observers", to
existing physics models and a new more encompassing physics emerged, whose
amazing predictions were born out by experiments. He didn't add that new
constructor because it made intuitive sense, but because prior experiments
indicated it to be reality, no matter how counterintuitive it seems.

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spuz
Previous discussion:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7802986](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7802986)

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Eiriksmal
Wait a second... I think this has been done before:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oliver_Wendell_Jones#The_Grand_...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oliver_Wendell_Jones#The_Grand_Unification_Theory)

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ghkbrew
So, not so much a new theory as a new language and set of rules (a calculus)
for describing our old theories?

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monochromatic
A "theory of everything" posted on the non-peer-reviewed arXiv? Color me
skeptical.

~~~
evanb
First, Deutsch is a serious field theorist and foundational quantum mechanist.
Second, the arXiv is not, as you seem to intimate, for work that isn't good
enough to pass peer review, but is, instead, a place to post work so that the
physics community can digest it without a 6-month peer-review delay. Articles
on the arXiv are almost always submitted to a journal within a few days of
being posted.

I should point out: that doesn't mean it's right! But it's not gobbledegook
either.

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capkutay
This reminds me of GEB where Hofstadter covers Godel's theory of
incompleteness. My personal understanding was that there can be no definite
theories that are true of everything in the universe...but that theory is a
paradox in itself because it is attempting to make a definite rule that is
true of everything in the universe

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wyager
Not quite. There is a lot of mysticism around the incompleteness theorems. The
Incompleteness theorems say that you cannot construct a single higher-order
logic capable of proving all true higher-order statements. This does not limit
our ability to discover truths about the universe. The incompleteness theorem
has little bearing on the discovery of universal physical laws.

