Scientists State The Laws of Physics May Be Changing
However, we would bet most people do not think that line applies to the actual rules of the universe itself. As it turns out, however, researchers at Microsoft, scientists at Brown University, and one professional who consulted for Disney’s “Wrinkle in Time” believe the laws of physics may actually be slowly changing, complicating our quest to understand the cosmos.
Popular Mechanics published an extensive explainer this week concerning a paper titled “The Autodidactic Universe,” and published earlier this year, in which the group argued for that precise mind-bending theory. An autodidact, of course, is someone that discovers without a mentor or instructor– and, these researchers claim, the universe itself may be one.
“We ask whether there would be a mechanism woven into the fabric of the natural world, by means of which deep space could discover its legislations,” the writers wrote in the paper, which has actually not yet been peer-assessed.
With time, the theory goes, deep space has actually sought stability. PopMech draws parallels to animal evolution, too. There are no trilobites or dinosaurs anymore; however, cats and dogs have survived because they adjusted to their environment, and the cosmos might have done the same.
In an early version of the cosmos, for instance, Newton’s laws of gravity– that all matter in the cosmos attracts other matter with a force directly proportional to the material of their masses and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between their centers– could not have been true yet.
“Over time, that device will teach itself, and some fundamental laws will arise, and that is really what they are talking about [in the paper],” Janna Levin, a professor of physics and astronomy at Barnard College of Columbia University that was not involved in the research study, informed PopMech. “If the universe can calculate with an offered set of formulas, then perhaps it can do the same sort of thing we see in an expert system, where you have self-learning systems that teach themselves new rules. Moreover, by rules, in cosmology, we mean laws of physics.”
The paper’s authors likewise acknowledge their own skepticism and created their conclusions with caution, warning that their work is only an infant step in forming a new concept and requires additional research.
“Of course, this is just a 1st step,” the authors write. “There are varied potential spin-offs from our approach.”
It is mind-bending to imagine that the laws of physics could learn and adjust over time. However, it reminds us that the universe is stranger than we will ever know.
Read the original article on futurism.
