Re:`Alien Calculus’ Could Save Particle Physics from Infinities
by evanb on Friday April 07, 2023 @09:01AM
(#35481132)
Typically in physics we derive laws from principles. For example, the law of conservation of momentum is derived from the principle of translation invariance.
Nobody calls the Standard Model a law, for example. The modern view is that the Standard Model is a low-energy effective field theory.
But, whatever supplants the SM, we still expect the principle of translation invariance to hold.
Until, that is, we have evidence for a paradigm shift. If we discover physics that really can't be described, for example, by dynamics happening in a geometric space, then we'll have to give up that principle. Strongly-coupled stringy dynamics seems to have non-geometric phases, for example.
So our statement of laws is more a description of the current best paradigm (say, the operating system), rather than our best model (the program).
Nobody calls the Standard Model a law, for example. The modern view is that the Standard Model is a low-energy effective field theory.
But, whatever supplants the SM, we still expect the principle of translation invariance to hold.
Until, that is, we have evidence for a paradigm shift. If we discover physics that really can't be described, for example, by dynamics happening in a geometric space, then we'll have to give up that principle. Strongly-coupled stringy dynamics seems to have non-geometric phases, for example.
So our statement of laws is more a description of the current best paradigm (say, the operating system), rather than our best model (the program).