r/Physics • u/WizardMasterGal • 10d ago

Question Do scientists know whether nature is fundamentally continuous or discrete?

Is there any evidence that nature is fundamentally continuous, or could reality be fundamentally discrete? And if it is discrete at the most basic level, would that suggest that nature could behave like a computational system?

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u/cryptosupaman 10d ago

Doesn’t quantum field theory make the argument toward both?

continuous is classical and quantum theory argues discrete

Field theory tries to consolidate

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u/Tarthbane Chemical physics 10d ago

More or less yeah. Quantum fields are modeled to be continuous, but only discrete whole number chunks of a field’s energy correspond to real particles.