[HN Gopher] Origami Patterns Solve a Major Physics Riddle
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Origami Patterns Solve a Major Physics Riddle
Author : westurner
Score : 46 points
Date : 2025-10-06 15:53 UTC (4 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.quantamagazine.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.quantamagazine.org)
| jmyeet wrote:
| I'm no big city physicist but whenever I see something like this
| I just wonder if it's not simply another expression of a
| fundamental group structure. There's also a whole branch of
| mathematics to express group structure as matrices (ie
| representation theory).
|
| I'm sure there are physicists out there going "duh" and maybe the
| point here is simply a visual representation of that group
| structure, which is fine.
|
| Here's the sad part for me. I'm really beginning to wonder if
| describing the fundamental group structure of physics is the best
| we can do. What I mean by that is we may never know what
| something really is. We'll just be able to describe the group
| structure. There's a group structure to describe electromagnetism
| and the nuclear forces, for example.
|
| Take something like particle generations. What is a "generation"?
| Why are there precisely 3 of them? As best as I can tell, nobody
| knows and maybe nobody will ever know. We'll simply be able to
| describe their structure.
|
| And that makes me sad in a way.
| MarkusQ wrote:
| We'll never figure it out until somebody figures it out, and
| then we'll move onto the next thing we'll probably never figure
| out. Or, to put it another way, everything is an obscure
| mystery, until it isn't.
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