Any realistic model of a physical system must be computationally realistic

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    2 Scopus citations

    Abstract

    It is argued that any possible definition of a realistic physics theory-i.e., a mathematical model representing the real world-cannot be considered comprehensive unless it is supplemented with requirement of being computationally realistic. That is, the mathematical structure of a realistic model of a physical system must allow the collection of all the system's physical quantities to compute all possible measurement outcomes on some computational device not only in an unambiguous way but also in a reasonable amount of time. In the paper, it is shown that a deterministic quantum model of a microscopic system evolving in isolation should be regarded as realistic since the NP-hard problem of finding the exact solution to the Schrödinger equation for an arbitrary physical system can be surely solved in a reasonable amount of time in the case, in which the system has just a small number of degrees of freedom. In contrast to this, the deterministic quantum model of a truly macroscopic object ought to be considered as non-realistic since in a world of limited computational resources the intractable problem possessing that enormous amount of degrees of freedom would be the same as mere unsolvable.

    Original languageEnglish
    Article number012088
    JournalJournal of Physics: Conference Series
    Volume574
    Issue number1
    DOIs
    StatePublished - 1 Jan 2014
    Event3rd International Conference on Mathematical Modeling in Physical Sciences, IC-MSQUARE 2014 - Madrid, Spain
    Duration: 28 Aug 201431 Aug 2014

    ASJC Scopus subject areas

    • General Physics and Astronomy

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