Re:Hitting Absolute Zero Has Been Declared Mathematically Im...
by JadeNB on Wednesday March 15, 2017 @01:45PM
(#13878132)
> How about mathematically proven to be physically impossible?
I would argue (as I did in a sibling thread https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13878107) that it is this that can't happen. Mathematics has no power over the real world, only over mathematical models (optionally of the real world). A proof of mathematical impossibility does not constrain the real world; it only allows us to deduce that, if the real world does the mathematically impossible, then our models are wrong (or at least incomplete).
I would argue (as I did in a sibling thread https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13878107) that it is this that can't happen. Mathematics has no power over the real world, only over mathematical models (optionally of the real world). A proof of mathematical impossibility does not constrain the real world; it only allows us to deduce that, if the real world does the mathematically impossible, then our models are wrong (or at least incomplete).