Carcassi's Reverse Physics Links Quantum via Entropy — SkimNews
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- Assumptions of Physics team, primarily Gabriele Carcassi and Christine Aidala at the University of Michigan, has spent the past 11 years breaking down essentially all of classical physics into mathematical equivalencies that let researchers cross between maths and physics in either direction.
- Entropy has emerged as a key construct: the team has shown that restricting any change in a system's entropy is equivalent to previously known rules for how that system can evolve over time, and their list of assumptions treats classical physics as akin to quantum physics with entropy made high.
- Gabriele Carcassi is now working on a slew of quantum problems, and concedes that quantum field theory's path integral — the object used for computations predicting particle-accelerator outcomes — is a poorly defined headache even for the professors who teach it.
- Reverse physics, Carcassi says, could help marry quantum mechanics with general relativity by supplying clarity on how both can be built from a shared mathematical base; his stated tagline is finding a minimal set of physical assumptions from which the laws can be rigorously re-derived.
- Measurements in quantum physics sit among the paradoxes reverse physics aims to resolve: objects seem to acquire a fixed reality only after being observed, and clarifying the underlying maths would settle whether the world is fundamentally fuzzy or solid.
- Carcassi's collaborators are deliberately staying out of quantum-interpretation fights over the multiverse and universal cosmic interconnection, focusing instead on the commonalities across every possible mathematical framework for quantum physics and whether a resultant theory matches how the universe is measured and observed.
- Funding is the stated main obstacle: Carcassi says that with appropriate funding and a big enough team the reverse physics programme could be completed within a decade, against a shortage of money and broad interest in foundational work.
Why it matters: Carcassi and Aidala's team has spent 11 years building a two-way bridge between mathematical objects and physical assumptions; the stated payoff is a common base on which quantum mechanics and general relativity can both be built. The constraint is resources: with adequate funding and a big enough team, Carcassi puts completion of the full programme within a decade.
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