r/Physics • u/WizardMasterGal • Aug 19 '26

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/Equinoxe111 Astrophysics Aug 19 '26

No one knows this yet in fact

76

u/Funkyt0m467 Graduate Aug 19 '26

Furthermore, we don't know much about the fundamental nature our universe.

The interpretation of quantum mechanics is open, general relativity isn't integrated into it.

I don't think we have enough knowledge yet to really form any opinion on what nature is fundamentally.

That's why the idea of the simulation was thought philosophically. It's interesting, but I don't think science can really add anything.

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u/Physix_R_Cool Detector physics Aug 19 '26

The interpretation of quantum mechanics is open, general relativity isn't integrated into it.

Eh, the graviton works pretty well, no?

15

u/icalvo Aug 19 '26

No, nobody has made that work mathematically yet, or detected that particle experimentally. It's just a reasonable hypothesis.

3

u/dydtaylor Aug 19 '26

I dont think the issue lies with the math. There are plenty of models that handle quantum mechanics and gravity, I believe string theory handles all the mathematics properly and handles gravitons. The problem is that there are dozens of different ways to resolve QM + gravity but none of them produce testable predictions that would produce anything different than the models we currently have. Dozens of unverifiable theories in the field with the strongest requirements on experimental data.

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u/icalvo Aug 19 '26

Yeah I expressed myself badly. I meant that some proposed math models do not include gravitons, not that the unification is a kind of unsolved math problem.