Theories of Everything with Curt Jaimungal

Brand New Result Proving Penrose & Tao's Uncomputability in Physics!

29 snips
Jul 7, 2025
Mathematician Eva Miranda shares her groundbreaking work proving that fluid motion can be Turing-complete, echoing the theories of legends like Roger Penrose and Terence Tao. She dives into the implications of chaos theory and the Navier-Stokes equations, revealing that certain fluid paths are logically undecidable. The discussion takes whimsical turns, featuring rubber ducks to illustrate complex concepts, and poses big questions about the limits of knowledge and predictability in nature.
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INSIGHT

Halting Problem Limits Knowledge

  • Alan Turing proved the halting problem is undecidable, meaning no algorithm can always decide if another program will stop or run forever.
  • This limits mathematical knowledge, contradicting Hilbert’s "we must know, we will know" optimism.
ANECDOTE

Rubber Ducks as Chaos Metaphor

  • A 1992 ship lost 29,000 rubber ducks, which later appeared unpredictably across the world, defying simulations.
  • This real story illustrates undecidability and complexity in nature, used as a metaphor for undecidable fluid paths.
INSIGHT

Unpredictability vs Undecidability

  • Unpredictability in physics can stem from insufficient information or from logical undecidability.
  • Classical chaos is about sensitivity to initial conditions; undecidability is a deeper barrier where no prediction algorithm exists.
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