Enter the matrix: the deep law that shapes our reality

Enter the matrix: the deep law that shapes our reality

www.newscientist.com

SUPPOSE we had a theory that could explain everything. Not just atoms and quarks but aspects of our everyday lives too. Sound impossible? Perhaps not.

It's all part of the recent explosion of work in an area of physics known as random matrix theory. Originally developed more than 50 years ago to describe the energy levels of atomic nuclei, the theory is turning up in everything from inflation rates to the behaviour of solids. So much so that many researchers believe that it points to some kind

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researchers believe that it points to some kind of deep pattern in nature that we don't yet understand. "It really does feel like the ideas of random matrix theory are somehow buried deep in the heart of nature,"

Quantum theory tells us that atomic nuclei have many discrete energy levels, like unevenly spaced rungs on a ladder. To calculate the spacing between each of the rungs, you would need to know the myriad possible ways the nucleus can hop from one to another, and the probabilities for those events to happen. Wigner didn't know, so instead he picked numbers at random for the probabilities and arranged them in a square array called a matrix.

What is most remarkable, though, is how Wigner's idea has been used since then. It can be applied to a host of problems involving many interlinked variables whose connections can be represented as a random matrix.

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this strikes me as being quite similar in nature to "cellular automata" discovered by stephen wolfram.

if i am understanding correctly, in random matrices you are basically performing algebraic transformations on a noise source.

one would expect that any function performed on noise will only result in more noise......but oddly, a pattern emerges with unpredictable yet regular characteristics.

this is a useful model of reality for the simple fact that the basic function of consciousness is the apprehension of information. and all information must exist above noise. in communications theory this is known as:

(signal + noise) / noise

where the algebraic transformations applied constitute a type of modulated information.



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reply to post by plumranch


" Quantum theory tells us that atomic nuclei have many discrete energy levels, like unevenly spaced rungs on a ladder. To calculate the spacing between each of the rungs, you would need to know the myriad possible ways the nucleus can hop from one to another, and the probabilities for those events to happen. Wigner didn't know, so instead he picked numbers at random for the probabilities and arranged them in a square array called a matrix. "

Some law will eventually emerge, but i dont think anytime soon. Quantum mechanics deals with descrete packets. Its all very well to call it one approach. The other in my view is to look at everything as waves including consiciousness. Until the metaphysical aspects are included in the mainstream physics, there will always be dead ends of some sort.
different realities exist within realities. So its time to look at analogue wave polarisations and set the physics rolling as it were

Cheers

I believe the key to understanding lies in the knowledge that we are part of. When man separates himself from the whole, he loses wisdom and perspective, and can never understand or "intuit" the meaning or the pattern. We have to experience our new input here at the edge of the fractal, to shape the future singularity, while sharing in the overall growth of the reality. In my opinion, of course. One love. Thanks.

reply to post by plumranch


This is actually pretty incredible!

Random matrix theory has got mathematicians like Percy Deift of New York University imagining that there might be more general patterns:

In a paper from 2006, for example, he showed how random matrix theory applies very naturally to the mathematics of certain games of solitaire, to the way buses clump together in cities, and the path traced by molecules bouncing around in a gas, among others. The most important question, perhaps, is whether there is some deep theory behind both physics and mathematics that explains why random matrices seem to capture essential truths about reality. "There must be some reason, but we don't yet know what it is," admits Nadakuditi. In the meantime, random matrix theory is already changing how we look at random systems and try to understand their behaviour. It may possibly offer a new tool, for example, in detecting small changes in global climate

reply to post by savvys84

The other in my view is to look at everything as waves including consiciousness.

If you look at the Casimir Effect and energy popping in and out of the narrow space between the plates the wave theory makes more sense because as waves pass through the energy is either there or not depending on the position of the wave.

Just a thought. Makes sense to me, I like waves.