Is the world evolving discretely?
type: Item
instance of: scholarly article
title: Is the world evolving discretely?
zbMATH Open document ID: 1039.00005
DOI: 10.1016/S0196-8858(03)00072-1
published in: Advances in Applied Mathematics
publication date: 2003-09-15T00:00:00Z
review text: The title and the first sentence of the article were meant probably to be thought-provoking, but they turned out to be rather simplistic. -- According to Kant, continuity and discreteness are merely perception modes of the mind. Neither is an ``Absolute''. Mathematical descriptions of `Natural Science' phenomena, continuous or discrete, are nothing more than models, established for accuracy, efficiency and convenience. -- Many individuals were perplexed by the discovery that light `is' a wave, a particle, or both `simultaneously', depending on observational circumstances. A similar situation is known to prevail in classical and relativistic mechanics, electrodynamics, thermodynamics, chemistry,\dots and even biology. The argumentation presented is primitively speculative. No concrete `Natural Science' or mathematical problem is solved. The existence of `gravitons' is still conjectural, precluding thus a realistic discrete modelling of gravitational phenomena. The article contains no heretofore unknown results. The references are scanty.
reviewed by: Igor Gumowski
Mathematics Subject Classification ID: 00A79
Mathematics Subject Classification ID: 00A30
Mathematics Subject Classification ID: 00A71
zbMATH DE Number: 1981417
zbMATH Keywords: discrete models
author: Saber Elaydi
MaRDI profile type: Publication
cites work: Global Stability of Cycles: Lotka-Volterra Competition Model With Stocking
cites work: Deterministic Nonperiodic Flow
cites work: Measurements of a Physical Process Satisfy a Difference Equation
full work available at URL: s0196-8858(03)00072-1
OpenAlex ID: W1997641515
description: scientific article; zbMATH DE number 1981417