Humans are always looking for a way to answer questions. It frustrates us when we have no answer to a question that’s been bugging us. One of the mysteries we can’t solve is the existence of the very universe we live in. The universe is so vast that there’s not a single theory that can help us understand everything. A small group of physicists are working on a theory that can describe the universe itself. The constructor theory might solve questions such as why biological evolution is possible and how abstract things like ideas and information seem to possess properties that are independent of any physical system, as Gizmodo details:
“When I first learned of constructor theory, it seemed too bold to be true,” said Abel Jansma, a graduate student in physics and genetics at the University of Edinburgh. “The early papers covered life, thermodynamics, and information, which seemed to be too much groundwork for such a young theory. But maybe it’s natural to work through the theory in this way. As an outsider, it’s exciting to watch.”
As a young physics researcher in the 2010s, Chiara Marletto had been interested in problems regarding biological processes. The laws of physics do not say anything about the possibility of life—yet even a slight tweak of any of the constants of physics would render life as we know it impossible. So why is evolution by natural selection possible in the first place? No matter how long you stared at the equations of physics, it would never dawn on you that they allow for biological evolution—and yet, apparently, they do.
Marletto was dissatisfied by this paradox. She wanted to explain why the emergence and evolution of life is possible when the laws of physics contain no hints that it should be. She came across a 2013 paper written by Oxford physicist and quantum computing pioneer David Deutsch, in which he laid the foundation for constructor theory, the fundamental principle of which is: “All other laws of physics are expressible entirely in terms of statements about which physical transformations are possible and which are impossible, and why.”
Image via Gizmodo