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
Why you feel so stuck in life
[Music] So the past year and a half, I’ve really been made aware of the intimate relationship between our psychology and our physiology. It seemed like, as we were locked down physically, we were also locked down mentally. As we felt kind of stuck in our …
The Market Revolution - part 1
So some historians have actually said that the Market Revolution is more revolutionary than the American Revolution. Actually, this is a very classic AP US History question: which was more revolutionary, the American Revolution or the Market Revolution? …
When you’re pre-product market fit, sales is a job for the founders.
If you’re the founder of an early stage startup and you’re building a product that you’re hoping other businesses will buy, you are capable of selling it. That’s the good news. The bad news is that you’re probably the only person capable of selling your p…
EXCLUSIVE: Fur Seals Are Back From the Brink on California Islands | National Geographic
The northern fur seal was a top predator in this area, and 150,000 of them were removed from the ecosystem. My name is Jim Teats, and I’m a biologist for Point Blue Conservation Science. I work on Southeast Farallon Island, which is 30 miles west of San F…
What Does 'Genius' Mean? | Genius
What does “genius” mean, to me? I think there are many brilliant people in the world, many people who are very, very intelligent. So I think it has to do with a line of dialogue that I think we have in the first episode, which is, “A genius is not just an…
Miyamoto Musashi - How to Build Self-Discipline
Miyamoto Musashi was a samurai who went undefeated in 61 duels, so it’s safe to say that he knew something about building self-discipline. And a week before he passed away, he wrote a short work called Dokkodo, which roughly translates to “The Way of Wal…