RE: The significance of mathematics - and why it can prove its own incompleteness

[galotta]

Could you elaborate on that? There are a few open problems in quantum physics and I'm not sure which one you are referring to.

Comments

[tfcoates]

Sorry ofcorse, I'm not a physycist, but I believe I'm referring to the uncertanty principle

there cannot be a formal system of logic with natural number arithmetic that is both consistent and complete

Sounds a lot like the idea that you can either know the velocity or position of a particle, but not both. So you're never 100% sure!

[galotta]

Yes there is some similarity in that the uncertainty principle also destroys the naive hope that quantum mechanics works just like classical mechanics and you can simultaneously obtain deterministic position and momentum.
In a sense this is both a problem and a feature of the theory ^^

[tfcoates]

Awesome, glad I wasn't making an idiot of myself :)