"We need to distinguish between two different ways of viewing the external physical reality: the outside view or bird perspective of a mathematician studying the mathematical structure and the inside view or frog perspective of an observer living in it. ...a mathematical structure is an abstract, immutable entity existing outside of space and time. If history were a movie, the structure would therefore correspond not to a single frame of it but to the entire videotape. ... If a future physics textbook contains the TOE, then its equations are the complete description of the mathematical structure that is the external physical reality. ...is rather than corresponds to...If our external physical reality is isomorphic to a mathematical structure, it therefore fits the definition of being a mathematical structure."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
Max Tegmark, "The Mathematical Universe" (Oct 8, 2007) arXiv:0704.0646
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Theory_of_everything
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Theory of everything
23 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Theory of everything →
Related Quotes
"[T]he single equation of nature, aimed at by Lagrange and Hamilton, by Weber and Maxwell in their several ways, has..…"
"Concerning such dimensionless constants] I would like to state a theorem which at present cannot be based upon anythi…"
"All science has one aim, namely, to find a theory of nature. We have theories of races and of functions, but scarcely…"
"[A]greement with observed facts" never singles out one individual theory. There is never only one theory that is in c…"
"[F]inding the T.O.E. would in no way mean that psychology, biology, geology, chemistry, or even physics had been solv…"
"We are all, in our own way, seekers of the truth... each generation stands firmly on the shoulders of the previous...…"
"The clearest expression of this modern "religious" mission can be recognized wherever one encounters the ancient Pyth…"
"Ever since Newton, and especially since Einstein, the goal of physics has been to find simple mathematical principles…"
"Any concepts or words which have been formed in the past through the interplay between the world and ourselves are no…"
"If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail."