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
IGTV...is this the end of YouTube?
There we have it, you guys! Shots fired! I thought it was relatively unfeasible for a company to potentially disrupt and take market share away from YouTube, which pretty much has a monopoly on long form user-generated content. That is until now. Now, for…
Multiplying 2-digit by 1-digit with partial products
[Instructor] In this video, we’re going to dig a little bit deeper and try to understand how we might multiply larger and larger numbers. In particular, we’re gonna focus on multiplying two-digit numbers times one-digit numbers. So, I always encourage y…
HOW TO SPEND YOUR $1200 STIMULUS CHECK
What’s up, guys? It’s Graham here, and welcome to my channel, where some random guy on the internet gives his unqualified opinion on the most important financial matters of today. So, there’s a lot we got to discuss in today’s video, and I’m wondering if…
Worked example: area between curves | AP Calculus AB | Khan Academy
What we’re going to do using our powers of calculus is find the area of this yellow region. If at any point you get inspired, I always encourage you to pause the video and try to work through it on your own. So, the key here is you might recognize, “Hey,…
Khan Academy’s AI Tool for the Classroom: Teacher + Student Edition
Welcome, welcome! We are going to be starting promptly at 3 o’clock, but we’re going to start letting our participants come in, so thank you for joining us today. Hello, hello, hello! Thank you all for joining us. We still have some participants coming in…
The Most-Photographed Toilet In New Zealand
Come with me as I poop in New Zealand’s most photographed public toilet, located in Kawakawa, near the top of the North Island. The Hundertwasser toilets are the final and only Southern Hemisphere project from reclusive artist Friedensreich Hundertwasser.…