Simplicity of Physical Laws: Informational-Theoretical Limits

Abstract

To assess the required simplicity of physical law, it is proposed that the finite information quantity (FIQ)-based approach be used. The approach proved to be reliable and accurate when analyzing the results of measuring physical constants. The method is based on the idea that using a finite amount of information in the model enables one to calculate the smallest preliminary and unremovable comparative uncertainty (respectively, relative uncertainty) depending on a qualitative-quantitative set of variables. The method does not require the usually applied constraints to the input data and works well with numerous statistical assumptions: the normality of the probability distributions of the data, observations, absence of outliers, etc. This paper provides researchers with a tool for analyzing the required level of simplicity of the resulting formulas. The FIQ-based approach is applied to verify the required level of simplicity of different physical laws.

Keywords

• Amount of information
• Boltzmann’s law
• finite information quantity
• Hubble’s law
• international system of units
• modeling