[Guille]

what do you think is better: a TOE with extremely strange and magimatical mathmetics or a TOE with no mathematics at all?

[Masa Hiryuu]

Inherently i don't think math is needed for a TOE but math will be useful in measuring interactions that the TOE explains

[Guille]

I prefeared strange math, only for this:

statement 1: The TOE will explain Nature

statement 2: We explain Nature with Mathematics

conclusion: A TOE must explain Nature wtih mathematics.

[Masa Hiryuu]

A TOE will simply explain everything and I think that that explanation will be very simple, easy to understand by even children.

However Math will be used to MEASURE the interactions that the toe theorises.

so yes the toe will come with "Strange Math" but it will be a tool to further technology. It will not be nessecary for the TOE itself...

[Guille]

ah, now I get it.


There is a problem with this: we never knwo when the TOE will be published, so if it is in a long time, then maybe straqnge math, because we and mathematics will have evolutionised a lot, and be able to create much. If it's soon, and it includes hard math: for essential things, then it won't be accepted because people will just don't be able to understand it. If it has amth, complciated and strange math, for things that aren't so important, then it will be accepted.

[AntonioLao]

Originally Posted by GUILLE what do you think is better: a TOE with extremely strange and magimatical mathmetics or a TOE with no mathematics at all?

the math should be simple but with deep physical connotation. For example, the concept of direction.

Can direction be easily defined in math without the use of angular measurements and a frame of reference or coordinate system?

Angular measurements are defined only using the ratios of lengths and distances as in trigonometry. But direction is not defined in trigonometry but it is defined by the projections of length in a coordinate system with their direction cosines, see http://mathworld.wolfram.com/DirectionCosine.html

In quantum field theories, the phase factors are advanced techniques of tracking angular measurements but in no way, the phase factors give any convincing definition of direction.

The complete definition of direction needs a principle of directional invariance to assert explicitly the existence of eight directional properties which are not reducible for a description of matter in three spatial dimension. But a complete description of matter needs a 4th dimension of time,which is based on the local infinitesimal motion of spacetime points having the directional properties.

[dleviwing]

Guille;
I thought this may help you in some of your thought processes.
Prove that an electron has a negative charge. This cannot be done. The negative charge of an electron is by definition and not that of cause and effect. The same is true of a positive charge and many other science terminologies.
Care should be taken when we misinterpret something that is by definition and something that is by cause and effect.
We require things by definition to create a mathematical model. Our current conundrum.
We require things by cause and effect to comprehend reality. This is the perceptual TOE.
Regards;
Dave

[jimscarver]

All languages and mathimatics are derivable from the predicate calculus.

Clearly there must be a language to describe any TOE, and either it is a logical language or it is a random one. If it is logical, then it is mathimatical. If it is random, it conveys no information and therfore cannot be a theory of everything.

Each era of science is accompanied by the invension of mathimatics which discribe it. Nature does not follow our mathimatics, instead we must discover its mathimatics.

I believe Wolfram is correct, and "The New Kind of Science" will be an information system model. While much work in this area is complex to the point of being practicaly incomprehensible, I do believe the answers will be simple. They will just not be compatible with our mathimatics of choice.

Jim