Metaphysical ‘karma’

A finite set of mathematical relations is the foundation of reality.

The objetive of science is to find those relations. As a consequence, science also attempts to clarify the ontological status of those mathematical relations. That is, to bring the metaphysical frontier in which they are deeply buried closer into the physical frontier.

If mathematics were reality itself, then reality would be an infinite substance, or an infinite number of substances, which would reflect in the impossibility of building physical laws.

(Ok, I want to believe that).

In any case, somehow, reality emerges to us as a deeply constrained thing. At the same time, science seems to have intrinsic limits to probe reality. Whether the former is a reflection of the latter, or vice-versa, seems to be our inescapable metaphysical ‘karma’.

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See also previous posts (here and here).

Physics Nobel 2007

The Nobel prize goes to Albert Fert and Peter Grünberg “for the discovery of Giant Magnetoresistance” — a quantum mechanical effect observed in thin film structures composed of alternating ferromagnetic and nonmagnetic metal layers (link).

Congratulations to them!

Important Update: I have just found out that the first author to the original 1988 paper about the giant magnetoresistive effect is the Brazilian physicist Mario Norberto Baibich, from the Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul. Congratulations!

Mechanistic Images in Geometric Form

I have just received my Philosophia Mathematica advance access notification and found this very interesting book review by Christopher Pincock (Purdue University):
Mechanistic Images in Geometric Form: Heinrich Hertz’s Principles of Mechanics, by Jesper Lützen.

From the review:

Philosophers unacquainted with the workings of actual scientific practice are prone to imagine that our best scientific theories deliver univocal representations of the physical world that we can use to calibrate our metaphysics and epistemology. Those few philosophers who are also scientists, like Heinrich Hertz (1857–1894), tend to contest this assumption. As Jesper Lützen relates in his scholarly and engaging book, Hertz’s Principles of Mechanics (1894) contributed to a lively debate about the content of classical mechanics and what, if anything, this highly successful scientific theory told us about the physical world. Lützen provides an in-depth reconstruction of how Hertz reacted to the foundational problems within the physics of his day and then used these problems to motivate his influential philosophical reflections on the nature of science and scientific theorizing.(…)

From the editorial review (book description):

(…)Hertz’s research program was cut short by the advent of relativity theory but its image theory influenced many philosophers as well as some physicists and mathematicians and its geometric form had a lasting influence on advanced expositions of mechanics.

My book has been released!

Yes! My science-fiction book is now available!

However — IT IS IN PORTUGUESE.

If you speak Portuguese and is interested, check out:

Tempo Aberto

Espero que goste!!