The physics that we know of seems to be wrong, according to one physicist!
“What we often call laws of physics are really just consistent mathematical theories that seem to match some parts of nature,” theoretical physicist Sankar Das Sarma writes at the beginning of a must-read new column in the New Scientist. These laws of physics are meant to describe our shared reality, even if they “evolve as our empirical knowledge of the universe improves.”
“Here’s the thing,” Sarma continues. “Despite many scientists viewing their role as uncovering these ultimate laws, I just don’t believe they exist.”
Sarma says he finds it “amazing” that humans “can make sense of some aspects of the universe through the laws of physics” at all.
“As we discover more about nature, we can hone our descriptions of it, but it is never-ending,” he writes. “Like peeling an infinite onion, the more we peel, the more there is to peel.”
Sarma also takes into account the concept of the multiverse or an infinite number of universes. Not everything and every law will be applicable to each one of them.
Sarma states that even when quantum mechanics is considered, which he describes as being “more like a set of rules that we use to express our laws rather than being an ultimate law itself,” there is a lot of ambiguity still left. Also, there are several variables to take into account in this so-called fundamental theory sacrosanct.
“It is difficult to imagine that a thousand years from now physicists will still use quantum mechanics as the fundamental description of nature,” he continues. “Something else should replace quantum mechanics by that time just as quantum mechanics itself replaced Newtonian mechanics.”
Sarma nevertheless sees “no particular reason that our description of how the physical universe seems to work should reach the pinnacle suddenly at the beginning of the 21st century and become stuck forever at quantum mechanics.”
“That would,” he adds, “be a truly depressing thought!”
