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
How To Earn Customers For Life
Can we take a big step back? Do you like your users? You know, do you like them? Yeah, and people think that’s a weird like, that’s not what they expect you to say. This is Michael Seibel with Dalton Caldwell, and today we’re going to talk about caring a…
What If You Were 620 Miles Long?
Let’s talk about double pain. If your body was 620 mil long, pain could be your alarm clock. You could bite your toe at bedtime and then go to sleep; you wouldn’t feel any pain until the signal from your toe reached your brain and woke you up 8 hours late…
Ask Sal Anything! Homeroom Wednesday, June 24
Hi everyone! Welcome to the homeroom livestream. Today, we’re actually just going to have an Ask Me Anything, so any questions you have for me about anything, I encourage you to put below, whether you’re watching this on Facebook or YouTube. Put this on t…
Caroline Hu Flexer answers viewer questions about Khan Academy Kids | Homeroom with Sal
Hello! Looks like we are live. Uh, hello everyone! Sal here from Khan Academy. Welcome to the daily homeroom. For those of y’all that this is the first time that you’re joining, this is really a way to connect and, uh, realize that we’re all part of a glo…
My Thoughts On The Millionaire Tax
What’s up, Graham? It’s Guys here. So, I want to talk about something that I’ve seen come up a lot lately, and that would be a proposed wealth tax. Now, initially, this is not a topic I was planning to address, but because we talk all things personal fina…
Setting Up a Beaver Trap | Life Below Zero
All right, good boys. Oh, this is a spot where I’ve trapped before, but I’ve had problems finding water. If I don’t have water, I’m kind of screwed here. If I got water, I got a chance of making sets. I can punch through the ice in a couple of different …