Do you think the concept of Energy, Mass, and Force is universal?
Specifically, if we meet an alien civilization, do we think that they too will have the universe compartmentalized into our conceptual categories?
For example, our most famous equation says that E = mc².
But for a civilization where the fundamental concepts are E/m (represented by B) and velocity, the equation could very well be B = c². The difference is conceptual — they think differently from us. The math would work out to be the same.
A team of researchers put this question to an Artificial Intelligence. It viewed hundreds of videos of physical objects in motions — such as pendulums and swings. It was then tasked with coming up with mathematical relations that explained the behavior.
In each case, the AI program identified a bunch of variables that it thought defined the system, and then derived relations between them.
One of these videos featured an “air dancer” undulating in front of a local used car lot. After several hours of analysis, the program returned 8 variables. Likewise, a video of a Lava lamp also produced 8 eight variables.
Interestingly, the number of fundamental concepts remained the same but the concepts themselves were very different.
In the case of a double-pendulum, the AI identified 4 variables. After some investigation, it appeared that two of the variables the program chose loosely corresponded to the angles of the arms, but the other two remain a mystery.
What would be interesting is how this would scale, at the length of an arbitrarily large closed system or the Universe. For example, can it tell us anything about Dark Matter if we keep showing it simulations of galaxy rotation curves?
Source: medium.com
