Curt Jaimungal: Can Physics Explain Its Own Laws?

Theories of Everything with Curt Jaimungal

Curt Jaimungal

Physics, Philosophy, Society & Culture, Science

4.6 • 606 Ratings

🗓️ 5 November 2025

⏱️ 15 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Why do physical laws have their specific form? Host Curt Jaimungal shows this question is a philosophical knot, because any "explanation" must itself stand on a law. Sponsors: - I personally subscribe to The Economist. TOE listeners get 35% off the annual subscription. No other podcast has this! https://economist.com/TOE Join My New Substack (Personal Writings): https://curtjaimungal.substack.com Listen on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4gL14b92xAErofYQA7bU4e Timestamps: - 00:00 - Why Physical Laws? - 05:04 - The Justification Problem - 12:14 - The Limits of Explanation Links mentioned: - Wigner’s Classification: https://ncatlab.org/nlab/show/Wigner+classification - Noether’s Theorem: https://ncatlab.org/nlab/show/Noether%27s+theorem - This Is What Energy Actually Is [TOE]: https://youtu.be/hQk9GLZ0Fms - Do Symmetries “Explain” Conservation Laws? [Paper]: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2010.10909 - Max Tegmark [TOE]: https://youtu.be/-gekVfUAS7c - Lee Smolin [TOE]: https://youtu.be/uOKOodQXjhc - Amanda Gefter [TOE]: https://youtu.be/yABPvDJ6Zgs - John Norton [TOE]: https://youtu.be/Tghl6aS5A3M - Laws of Physics [Eddy Keming Chen]: https://arxiv.org/abs/2309.03484 - What’s Actually Possible: https://curtjaimungal.substack.com/p/the-unexamined-in-principle - Eddy Chen & Barry Loewer [TOE]: https://youtu.be/xZnafO__IZ0 - The Package Deal Accounts of Laws and Properties [Paper]: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11229-020-02765-2 - David Deutsch [TOE]: https://youtu.be/vKeWv-cdWkM - Elan Barenholtz & Will Hahn [TOE]: https://youtu.be/Ca_RbPXraDE - Münchhausen Trilemma [Wikipedia]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M%C3%BCnchhausen_trilemma - Jennifer Nagel [TOE]: https://youtu.be/CWZVMZ9Tm7Q - Law Without Law [Paper]: https://arxiv.org/pdf/1712.01826 - Schrodinger Equation: https://ncatlab.org/nlab/show/Schr%C3%B6dinger+equation - Born Rule: https://ncatlab.org/nlab/show/Born+rule - Enaction of Qbists [Paper]: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2411.04230 - Constructor Theory [Paper]: https://arxiv.org/pdf/1210.7439 - The Package Deal Account of Laws and Properties [Paper]: https://sites.rutgers.edu/barry-loewer/wp-content/uploads/sites/195/2020/05/Loewer-2020-The-Package-Deal-Account.pdf - Jonathan Pageau [TOE]: https://youtu.be/X3co_AA6yec - The Most Abused Theorem in Math (Godel’s Incompleteness) [TOE]: https://youtu.be/OH-ybecvuEo SUPPORT: - Become a YouTube Member (Early Access Videos): https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCdWIQh9DGG6uhJk8eyIFl1w/join - Support me on Patreon: https://patreon.com/curtjaimungal - Support me on Crypto: https://commerce.coinbase.com/checkout/de803625-87d3-4300-ab6d-85d4258834a9 - Support me on PayPal: https://www.paypal.com/donate?hosted_button_id=XUBHNMFXUX5S4 SOCIALS: - Twitter: https://twitter.com/TOEwithCurt - Discord Invite: https://discord.com/invite/kBcnfNVwqs Guests do not pay to appear. Theories of Everything receives revenue solely from viewer donations, platform ads, and clearly labelled sponsors; no guest or associated entity has ever given compensation, directly or through intermediaries. #science Theories of Everything with Curt Jaimungal features long-form, technically detailed interviews with leading researchers in physics, mathematics, consciousness, and philosophy, exploring topics at the level of active research. For academics, graduate students, and anyone seeking depth beyond popular science. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Why do physical laws have the form that they do? Do we text the universe at 2 a.m. and say,
0:04.9	hey, you up? Need to talk about fundamental constants. The question seems straightforward
0:10.2	since physics ostensibly explains everything else. So what about its own foundations?
0:16.8	Here's why I think this innocent query is beguiling and treacherous.
0:22.1	Physicists love to point to our explanatory successes, so we have Vigner or Wigner's classification,
0:28.0	however it's pronounced telling us that particles are certain types of representations of certain types of groups.
0:33.8	This quote-unquote explains why particles have the properties that they do.
0:38.5	They're just mathematical consequences of space-time symmetries, yo. And then we have another's
0:43.3	theorem, which links against certain symmetries to conservation laws under some
0:47.9	variational principles. For instance, you may have learned that spatial symmetry gives
0:52.1	momentum conservation, and time symmetry gives
0:55.2	energy conservation. It's all beautiful, no? Now, Nother's theorem is said to, quote-unquote,
1:00.8	explain conserved quantities. Firstly, there are problems with defining energy in this manner,
1:05.5	and you can click on this video here to watch what energy actually is in general relativity. But here's what many tend to not
1:12.8	think about. We're actually facing another's inverse problem. So given a set of conservation laws,
1:19.4	can we uniquely determine the symmetries? The answer is no. Multiple agrongians can give the same
1:26.9	physics, thus the map from the symmetries to the
1:29.4	conserved quantities is not invertible. Now, I should say there is actually an inverse nuthers theorem.
1:34.5	See Harvey Brown's paper here, his recent work. The problem is that for these inverse nuthers
1:39.6	theorems, you do require additional constraints, and it doesn't fully resolve the uniqueness issues.
1:45.5	Also, there are conservation laws that can exist without variational principles,
1:50.2	such as with dissipative systems and conserved quantities that lack a Lagrangian formulation.
	...

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