Essay Abstract

In this short one-page essay it is argued that mathematical structures used to describe physics are always nothing more than models prepared in abstraction of the reality, i.e. invented by humans, inspired by Nature and effective by design.

Author Bio

The Author got his PhD in 1991 from the University of Silesia, Poland. He is appointed since 2003 as Senior Lecturer at the Department of Theoretical Chemistry the same Alma Mater, and works also closely with the Computer Science Group at the Faculty of Mathematics, Physics and Chemistry.

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Dear Dr. Wlodarz:

Your essay is very concise and very clear. Mathematical models work because they are designed to do so.

I agree, and my own essay, "Remove the Blinders: How Mathematics Distorted the Development of Quantum Theory", focuses on a particularly egregious example of how an incorrect mathematical model became accepted as reality, despite obvious "paradoxes". I argue that contrary to universal belief, a simple realistic picture of the microworld is possible, completely avoiding the paradoxes that plague orthodox quantum mechanics (including entanglement). QM is not a universal theory of matter; it is rather a mechanism for distributed vector fields to self-organize into spin-quantized coherent domains similar to solitons. This requires nonlinear mathematics that is not present in the standard Hilbert-space formalism. This also makes directly testable experimental predictions, based on little more than Stern-Gerlach measurements. Remarkably, these simple experiments have never been done.

So while mathematics can provide important insights into physics, an incorrect mathematical model that becomes established may be seen as virtually religious dogma which is not to be questioned. That prevents further progress.

Alan Kadin

    a month later

    Dear Joachim,

    I think Newton was wrong about abstract gravity; Einstein was wrong about abstract space/time, and Hawking was wrong about the explosive capability of NOTHING.

    All I ask is that you give my essay WHY THE REAL UNIVERSE IS NOT MATHEMATICAL a fair reading and that you allow me to answer any objections you may leave in my comment box about it.

    Joe Fisher