This New Idea Could Explain Complexity
Architects don’t need to know quantum physics. This doesn’t seem like a particular deep insight but I am hoping to convince you that it’s very profound, indeed one of the biggest mysteries of science. And a recent paper made a pretty good step to solve this mystery. Let’s have a look.
For all we currently know, everything in the universe is made from 25 elementary particles, held together by 4 forces. This sounds, let’s be honest, somewhat boring. But out of these 25 building blocks, the universe has created a bewildering variety of structure. Galaxies, bacteria, planets, hurricanes, humans, societies, cat memes. Far from boring!
The universe creates complexity out of simplicity by a process we call emergence. Loosely speaking, emergence means that small objects collect to larger ones and the large ones follow new natural laws on their own right. Strictly speaking, we don’t know what it means. And that’s the problem.
Emergence is the reason why architects don’t need to know quantum physics. The laws of statics emerge out of quantum physics. The details of the individual particles’ quantum behaviour don’t matter. Emergence is also the reason why we can talk about the orbits of planets without knowing exactly what they’re made of. And emergence is also why a degree in particle physics doesn’t make you a good heart surgeon.
Physicists call this the “separation of scales”. That we can talk about different laws of nature at different levels of resolution. On the deepest level, on the smallest distances, we are the standard model of particle physics. When we go to larger scales we get atomic nuclei, atoms, molecules, materials, and eventually human beings and their troubles.
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