Physics and the Totalitarian Principle Helge Kragh https://arxiv.org/search/physics?searchtype=author&query=Kragh%2C+H (Submitted on 10 Jul 2019) https://arxiv.org/abs/1907.04623
> What is sometimes called the "totalitarian principle," a metaphysical > doctrine often associated with the famous physicist Murray Gell-Mann, states > that everything allowed by the laws of nature must actually exist. The > principle is closely related to the much older "principle of plenitude." > Although versions of the totalitarian principle are well known to physicists > and often appear in the physics literature, it has attracted little > reflection. Apart from a critical examination of the origin and history of > the totalitarian principle, the paper discusses this and the roughly similar > plenitude principle from a conceptual perspective. In addition it offers > historical analyses of a few case studies from modern physics in which > reasoning based on the totalitarian principle can be identified. The cases > include the prediction of the magnetic monopole, the hypothesis of > radioactive protons, and the discovery of the muon neutrino. Moreover, > attention is called to the new study of metamaterials. > "Feynman later commented on his path integral approach to quantum mechanics as follows (Feynman, Leighton and Sands 1966, p. 19-9): Is it true that the particle doesn’t just “take the right path” but that it looks at all the other possible trajectories? … The miracle of it all is, of course, that it does just that. That’s what the laws of quantum mechanics say. [The principle of least action] isn’t that a particle takes the path of least action, but that it smells all the paths in the neighborhood and chooses the one that has the least action. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/2063475301.1008777.1581341741888%40mail1.libero.it.
