Efforts to Ground Physics in Math Are Opening the Secrets of Time
1 min read
Summary
David Hilbert hoped that mathematics could bring rigor to physics at the turn of the 20th century, and in 1900 he insisted that rigorous, airtight proofs could be produced for the laws of physics.
Hilbert set this out as one of 23 challenges for the field of mathematics, but it proved to be one of the most difficult to complete.
Now, mathematicians Yu Deng, Zaher Hani and Xiao Ma claim to have resolved this problem through a proof demonstrating that the microscopic behavior of particles gives rise to the mesoscopic behavior of a gas.
Because the mesoscopic behavior of gas is in turn believed to lead to the macroscopic behavior of gas, this proves, according to the magazine Quanta Magazine, that it is possible to derive a macroscopic model of a gas from a microscopic one.
However, the magazine also points out that there is no suggestion that this proves that time is irreversible.
This is because, at a microscopic level, time is reversible.
At the mesoscopic and macroscopic levels, time is generally believed to be irreversible.
