Quantum Mathematical Physics

Felix Finster, Johannes Kleiner, Christian Röken +1 more

Enrique Ordaz Romay

The mathematical representation of the physical objects determines which mathematical branch will be applied during the physical analysis in the systems studied. The difference among non-quantum physics, like classic or relativistic physics, and quantum physics, especially in quantum field theory, is nothing else than the difference between the mathematics that is used on both branches of the physics. A common physical and mathematical origin for the analysis of the different systems brings both forms (quantum and classic) of understanding the nature mechanisms closer to each other.

Gabriele Nunzio Tornetta

Arkady Plotnitsky

The argument of this chapter is governed by the double meaning of its title: (a) the relationships between the concepts of discreteness and continuity in modern mathematics and physics; and (b) the relationships, both continuous and discontinuous, between mathematics and physics, as, from Galileo on, a mathematical-experimental science, with mathematics coming first in this conjunction. The project of modern physics was, thus, defined by an essential continuity between mathematics and physics, as a mathematical representation of nature, principally by means of continuous functions and then calculus, until the rise of quantum theory, specifically as quantum mechanics (QM) and quantum field theory (QFT). With QM, at least in certain interpretations, such as the one adopted in this chapter, quantum theory disconnected the ultimate constitution of nature from any mathematical representation, thus, making physics discontinuous with mathematics. As this chapter will argue, however, this new epistemological situation did not disconnect quantum physics from mathematics, but, on the contrary, led to relating abstract mathematics, such as that of Hilbert spaces over ℂ and operator algebra there, to discrete physical phenomena in terms of probabilities, thus reestablishing the connection, which was no longer representational, between mathematics and physics. This chapter will also argue that the development of the concepts of continuity and discontinuity, and the relationships between them, has acquired a great richness and complexity through the nineteenth and twentieth centuries in mathematics itself, richness and complexity that found their way into physics, in particular relativity and quantum theory. One of the intriguing aspects of this development is the idea, advanced by, among others, A. Grothendieck, following B. Riemann's comment on the subject, that the continuous may serve as an approximation of the discontinuous, rather than seeing, as is more common, the discontinuous as a mode of technical approach to the continuous. This chapter will discuss this idea, and the relationships between continuity and discontinuity in, and between, mathematics and physics in terms of two new concepts: reality without realism (RWR), applicable in both mathematics and physics, and the relationships between them, and ideality without idealism (IWI), the version of the concept of RWR, applicable specifically to mathematics.

Janko Kokošar

Extraordinary mathematicality of physics is also shown by dimensionlessness of Planck spacetime and mass. At the same time the Planck granularity of spacetime also shows that physics can be simulated by a binary computer. So physics is informational. But mathematics is not everything in physics, consciousness cannot be solely explained by mathematics. The reason that quantum gravity (QG) does not yet exist is the lack of knowledge about spacetime as background. Quantum mechanics is not complete, because foundational principle is not yet known, and because consciousness and QG are not yet explained. The free will and quantum randomness are similar unexplained phenomena. Even philosophy is important in physics, because what mathematics cannot describe in physics is ontology. And, intuition affects what is mainstream physics. Simplicity and clearness of physics and mathematics of physics are important not only for beginners, but also for the development of the fundamental physics. Uncertainty principle is so simple that maybe it could be derived without the use of wave functions. On the simplicity and clearness of fundamental physics it can be done a lot.

Cécile de Witt-Morette