User talk:Likebox

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Hello, Likebox, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are some pages that you might find helpful:

I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your messages on discussion pages using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically insert your username and the date. If you need help, check out Wikipedia:Questions, ask me on my talk page, or ask your question on this page and then place {{helpme}} before the question. Again, welcome! Bearian (talk) 20:51, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] Robert Kraichnan

Please find and add a cite to the obit, please. Bearian (talk)

[edit] Gōdel proof

Hi. I think you know a lot of things I would be happy to understand better. Do you have any idea if the Gödel incompleteness theorem might have anything to say about whether it is possible to construct a complete and finite set of laws of physics, or if it might provide an approach to the question of the possibility (or not) of constructing a finite and complete description of natural law? Thanks. Wwheaton (talk) 20:13, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, that reply was helpful. I came to this question thinking of axiomatic theories as the ideal for Hilbert's attempts to make mathematics more rigorous, and then by extension in my imagination, physics also. I see I have not paid sufficient attention to the relations and the differences between Nature and computational models. I'll have to let that simmer in my brain for a while I guess.
Are you working in string theory? I agree it looks to be the best hope for progress on the fundamental frontier, but I do seem to have mixed feelings about dreams of a final theory. Good luck, anyhow. Cheers, Bill Wwheaton (talk) 17:19, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Your edits to Halting Problem

Please discuss your edits on the Talk page for this article BEFORE you re-insert the text that I have now, twice reverted. Zero sharp (talk) 21:07, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Inflation

Hi Ron, I'm not sure why you removed the expression for the proper distance I inserted. Perhaps you thought it was intended to contradict the inverse BH expression you added? I'm sure it doesn't. --Michael C. Price talk 20:00, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] String Theory

It would be great if you made your edits to String Theory in smaller pieces. Your contributions are for the most part positive, but deleting and re-writing large swaths of text in one go makes it tough to consider your changes, distinguish the good from the bad, and do anything but accept or revert it all. (I haven't yet decided which to do with your most recent edit.) Thanks PhysPhD (talk) 15:20, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Schrodinger quotes

I've added a couple to Schrodinger at Wikiquote [1] which you might be find interesting. One is rather proto-Everett -- 'all is waves'.--Michael C. Price talk 18:13, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Following on from our discussion of Born I looked up his 1925/6 probability article (in Zurek & Wheeler's Quantum theory and measurement) to see his reasoning, thinking that he was probably inspired by \frac{d}{dt}\int\psi^*\psi dx^3 = 0. Not a bit of it. Get this: he writes that the probability density is, in modern jargon, |\psi|\,. This is only corrected to \psi^*\psi \, in an "added in proof" footnote.--Michael C. Price talk 19:19, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

I can't find an online source for Born's article: I'm reading Zurek and Wheeler's translation "on the quantum mechanics of collisions" in "Quantum theory and measurement", ISBN 0-691-08316-9, which is a collection of the original articles relating to QM and measurement (it includes Everett's article). Born doesn't really give much direct insight into his reasoning -- except that it clearly wasn't mathematical! He implies that the radiative discontinuities in nature (and in particular those observed in scattering experiments) led him to conclude that the underlying processes are probabilistic.--Michael C. Price talk 19:35, 27 May 2008 (UTC)