yego.me
💡 Stop wasting time. Read Youtube instead of watch. Download Chrome Extension

We Can’t Prove Most Theorems with Known Physics


2m read
·Nov 3, 2024

Processing might take a few minutes. Refresh later.

The overwhelming majority of theorems in mathematics are theorems that we cannot possibly prove. This is Girdle's theorem, and it also comes out of Turing's proof of what is and is not computable. These things that are not computable vastly outnumber the things that are computable, and what is computable depends entirely upon what computers we can make in this physical universe.

The computers that we can make must obey our laws of physics. If the laws of physics were different, then we'd be able to prove different sorts of mathematics. This is another part of the mathematician's misconception: they think they can get outside of the laws of physics. However, their brain is just a physical computer. Their brain must obey the laws of physics.

If they existed in a universe with different laws of physics, then they could prove different theorems. But we exist in the universe that we're in, and so we're bound by a whole bunch of things, not least of which is the finite speed of light. So there could be certain things out there in abstract space which we would be able to come to a more full understanding of if we could get outside of the restrictions of the laws of physics here.

Happily, none of those theorems that we cannot prove at the moment are inherently interesting. Some things can be inherently boring; namely, all of these theorems which we cannot possibly prove as true or false. Those theorems can't have any bearing in our physical universe. They have nothing to do with our physical universe, and this is why we say they're inherently uninteresting. There's a lot of inherently uninteresting things...

More Articles

View All
Mapping the Mysterious Islands Near San Francisco | Best Job Ever
Ross and I went out to the ferons to capture conservation stories and map The Refuge. The Falon National Wildlife Refuge is the largest seabird nesting colony in the lower 48 states, and it’s also an incredibly important breeding ground for marine mammals…
Why creating a strong password really matters
All right, Guemmy. So, as long as I can remember on the internet, you know, there’s always been, you create passwords, and I feel like every year they’re asking me to create more and more hard or more difficult to remember passwords. Why is this happening…
How to learn a language FAST and never forget it
Have you ever spent a significant amount of time learning a language only to forget it completely later? It’s a frustrating experience, but it’s all too common. Despite the effort it takes to learn a language, forgetting it can happen effortlessly. Luckil…
Worked examples: slope-intercept intro | Mathematics I | High School Math | Khan Academy
Do some practice examples from our intro to slope-intercept exercise. What is the slope of y is equal to negative 4x minus 3? So, you might already recognize this is in slope-intercept form. Just as a reminder, slope-intercept form is y is equal to mx p…
It’s the Diseases We Get As We Age That Kill Us | Breakthrough
Researchers at the Buck Institute in Northern California are looking for ways to prevent the many diseases associated with aging by slowing the aging process itself. To discover drugs that will one day increase health in human beings, researchers start mu…
Estimating adding decimals
What we’re going to do in this video is get some practice estimating adding decimals. So here it says twelve point nine three plus six point one is approximately equal to this little squiggly equal sign means approximately equal to. So try to estimate thi…