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The Maximum Tension Principle in General Relativity(2002) (arxiv.org)
12 points by kelseyfrog on Aug 20, 2023 | hide | past | favorite | 3 comments



The title is underselling it, the paper makes the point that because of black holes there are many maximums for physical quantities.

Another similar treatise listed a bunch:

Maximum pressure is what you would hypothetically feel on the bottom of your feet if held up against the gravity of a black hole at the even horizon, as-if standing on the surface of a solid plant or on the floor of a spaceship holding position.

Maximum irradiance is the photon density that would turn into a black hole because there’s too much mass/energy per unit volume of space.

Etc, etc…

Essentially, the existence of black holes puts constraints on everything physical. There are no true infinities in the universe!

I’ve never seen a better argument for “we’re living in a simulation” than this. It just feels an awful lot like everything is represented with 128-bit numbers and these extreme are what happens as you approach the maximum representable range…


Best argument I know is that Quantum Mechanics and "spooky action at a distance" is due to Lazy evaluation.


I presume this was posted in relation to the fringe claim on an article posted earlier today: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37197977.




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