Disclaimer: machine translated by DeepL which may contain errors.
The Universe is Made of Mathematical Formulas
Yasushi Sudo, Professor, Department of Physics
| Yasushi Sudo |
| The Universe is Made of Mathematical Formulas |
| Asahi Shinsho (2022) |
| isbn 978-4022951601 |
There is a former student who changed his career and became a judge after receiving his Doctoral student degree in cosmology. He asked me to give a talk titled "The Watchman of Law" at a workshop for judges from all over Japan four years ago.
In compulsory education, we learn that "people must obey the law," but in reality, some people do not. This is why it is essential to have judges, who are the keepers of the law, to determine what is illegal. In contrast, I do not recall being taught in school the fact that "the world follows laws," but "illegal" phenomena that contradict laws never occur. In other words, physicists are not keepers of the law, but are in the daily business of figuring out what the law is.
How could I have spoken for two hours in front of a panel of judges on such a nonsensical subject? However, "the world follows the law," which is self-evident to physicists, is not necessarily shared by the general public. Perhaps it is because "society does not necessarily follow laws. On the other hand, students who are too naive to believe that mathematical solutions obtained by solving Schrödinger's or Einstein's equations are always realized in this world may be a problem.
This book, somewhat rhetorically titled "The Universe is Made of Mathematical Formulas," was written to propagate the nontrivial wonder that not only does the universe follow laws, but that physical laws can (apparently) be written down in terms of differential equations. Those who read it and do not join the church will not be unhappy. I hope you will use this article as a reference to make your own judgments.
Published in the November 2022 issue of Faculty of Science News