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jake jot
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- 17
Can someone show or illustrate how purely algebraic physics can describe black holes, gravitational waves or other predictions of General Relativity?
In a letter of Einstein to Paul Langevin, 3 October 1935, as translated in Stachel 1986, 379-80, he wrote:
"In any case one does not have the right today to maintain that the foundation must consist in a field theory in the sense of Maxwell. The other possibility, however, leads in my opinion to a renunciation of the time-space continuum and to a purely algebraic physics. Logically this is quite possible (the system is described by a number of integers; “time” is only a possible viewpoint [Gesichtspunkt], from which the other “observables” can be considered—an observable logically coordinated to all the others. Such a theory doesn’t have to be based upon the probability concept. For the present, however, instinct rebels against such a theory"And Einstein wrote in a letter to his friend Besso in 1954, “I consider it quite possible that physics cannot be based on the field concept, i.e., continuous structure. In that case, nothing remains of my entire castle in the air, gravitation theory included, (and of) the rest of modern physics”
What does he mean by continuous structure? Was he talking about QFT? If it couldn't be based on field concept, then what is it? And why would it lead to breakdown of all of modern physics?
In a letter of Einstein to Paul Langevin, 3 October 1935, as translated in Stachel 1986, 379-80, he wrote:
"In any case one does not have the right today to maintain that the foundation must consist in a field theory in the sense of Maxwell. The other possibility, however, leads in my opinion to a renunciation of the time-space continuum and to a purely algebraic physics. Logically this is quite possible (the system is described by a number of integers; “time” is only a possible viewpoint [Gesichtspunkt], from which the other “observables” can be considered—an observable logically coordinated to all the others. Such a theory doesn’t have to be based upon the probability concept. For the present, however, instinct rebels against such a theory"And Einstein wrote in a letter to his friend Besso in 1954, “I consider it quite possible that physics cannot be based on the field concept, i.e., continuous structure. In that case, nothing remains of my entire castle in the air, gravitation theory included, (and of) the rest of modern physics”
What does he mean by continuous structure? Was he talking about QFT? If it couldn't be based on field concept, then what is it? And why would it lead to breakdown of all of modern physics?
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