Scientists Are Mapping the Boundaries of What Is Knowable and Unknowable
1 min read
Summary
In 1990, physicist Cris Moore built a theoretical machine with a single moving part that was capable of performing any algorithm — but could not be predicted.
Called the halting problem, the machine was undecidable, meaning there was no way of knowing if it would ever stop, making its behaviour inherently unpredictable.
Now, more than 30 years on, physicists are finding undecidability in collections of quantum particles along with classical systems, which they call a “next-level chaotic thing.”
These systems mean there are certain questions that cannot be answered, at least with the resources we have available to us today.
This is an unfamiliar finding for physicists, but one that mathematicians welcome, indicating an unknowable boundary to knowledge.
