From now on, bad students will be able to justify themselves by stating that they are bad at physics “because it is difficult”, and furthermore this fact is scientifically proven. Although it is something that almost all mortals knew, an article published in the journal Physical Review Letters confirms that, at least for certain problems, physics is very complicated.
The behavior of a physical system is determined by dynamic equations. From experimental data, physicists derive these equations, allowing them to predict how the system will behave in the future. A group of researchers, from the Complutense University of Madrid, wanted to evaluate whether it is possible to automate the deduction of these equations, that is, whether from experimental data, a computer is capable of substituting the work of theoretical physicists and solving the problem. .
Although, with the current development of supercomputers, it would be expected that in the future these could replace scientists, the authors of the work have shown that, in the case of physics, this is mathematically impossible, since they are problems that in computation are called NP-type. These are problems in which the amount of time required to solve them is much greater than the problem itself , which means that a computer system cannot reach the solution in an efficient way, since it would take a lot of time.
“Work will allow everyone to sleep peacefully,” says Tony Cubitt, one of the authors, “for physicists because supercomputers are not going to take away their work. For those who are not physicists, because although they already suspected that the Physics is difficult and that is why it was difficult for them to understand it, now there is no doubt: it is a mathematical certainty “.
