Will Constructor Theory REWRITE Physics?

The people behind the greatest leaps in physics - Einstein, Newton, Heisenberg, all had the uncanny ability to see the fundamentals - see the deepest, underlying facts about the world, and from simple statements about reality they built up their incredible theories. Well what if we all had a recipe book for doing exactly this. Well, one might be just around the corner and it’s called Constructor Theory.

Sign Up on Patreon to get access to the Space Time Discord!

Check out the Space Time Merch Store

Sign up for the mailing list to get episode notifications and hear special announcements!

Hosted by Matt O'Dowd
Written by Jason Segall & Matt O'Dowd
Post Production by Leonardo Scholzer, Yago Ballarini, Pedro Osinski, Adriano Leal & Stephanie Faria
GFX Visualizations: Ajay Manuel
Directed by Andrew Kornhaber
Assistant Producer: Setare Gholipour
Executive Producers: Eric Brown & Andrew Kornhaber

Special Thanks to Our Patreon Supporters

Big Bang Supporters
Peter Barrett
Nils Anderson
David Neumann
Ari Paul
Charlie
Mrs. Tiffany Poindexter
Leo Koguan
Sandy Wu
Matthew Miller
Ahmad Jodeh
Alexander Tamas
Morgan Hough
Juan Benet
Vinnie Falco
Fabrice Eap
Mark Rosenthal
David Nicklas
Henry Van Styn

Quasar Supporters
Alex Kern
Michael Schneider
Ethan Cohen
Stephen Wilcox
Christina Oegren
Mark Heising
Hank S

Hypernova Supporters
William Bryan
Justin Smith
drollere
Joe Moreira
Marc Armstrong
Elizabeth Smith
Scott Gorlick
Nick Berard
Paul Stehr-Green
MuON Marketing
Russell Pope
Ben Delo
Nicholas Newlin
Scott Gray
Антон Кочков
John R. Slavik
Mathew
Donal Botkin
John Pollock
Edmund Fokschaner
Joseph Salomone
Matthew O'Connor
chuck zegar
Jordan Young
m0nk
John Hofmann
Daniel Muzquiz
Timothy McCulloch

Gamma Ray Burst Supporters
Brett Baker
Daniel Morgan
Jeremy Soller
Jonathan Conerly
Andre Stechert
Ross Bohner
Farhan Wali
Paul Wood
Kent Durham
jim bartosh
Nubble
Chris Navrides
Scott R Calkins
Carl Scaggs
G Mack
The Mad Mechanic
Ellis Hall
John H. Austin, Jr.
Diana S
Ben Campbell
Lawrence Tholl, DVM
Faraz Khan
Almog Cohen
Alex Edwards
Ádám Kettinger
MD3
Endre Pech
Daniel Jennings
Cameron Sampson
Pratik Mukherjee
Geoffrey Clarion
Nate
Adrian Posor
Darren Duncan
Russ Creech
Jeremy Reed
Eric Webster
Steven Sartore
David Johnston
J. King
Michael Barton
Christopher Barron
James Ramsey
Justin Jermyn
Mr T
Andrew Mann
Peter Mertz
Isaac Suttell
Devon Rosenthal
Oliver Flanagan
Bleys Goodson
Robert Walter
Bruce B
Ismael Montecel
Simon Oliphant
Mark Delagasse
Mark Daniel Cohen
Brandon Lattin
Nickolas Andrew Freeman
Protius Protius
Shane Calimlim
Tybie Fitzhugh
Robert Ilardi
Eric Kiebler
Craig Stonaha
Martin Skans
Michael Conroy
Graydon Goss
Frederic Simon
Tonyface
John Robinson
A G
Kevin Lee
Adrian Hatch
Yurii Konovaliuk
John Funai
Cass Costello
Tristan Deloche
Bradley Jenkins
Kyle Hofer
Daniel Stříbrný
Luaan
AlecZero
Vlad Shipulin
Cody
Malte Ubl
King Zeckendorff
Nick Virtue
Scott Gossett
Dan Warren
Patrick Sutton
John Griffith
Daniel Lyons
DFaulk
GrowingViolet
Kevin Warne
Andreas Nautsch
Brandon labonte

[riveradam]

Teaching bleeding-edge science to a general audience (me) without making it feel watered down is done nowhere else as well as here. Thanks to all involved.

[irispounsberry]

Years ago, I was a physics major. Life didn't turn out the way I initially expected and now I'm in CS classes, including Theory of Computation. This video is very much the intersection of stuff I've studied/studying and hits hard.

[kito-]

7:45
We've had an "algebra of possibility" for over 70 years. It's called modal logic, and the standardly used semantics for it is possible worlds semantics (also known as Kripke semantics).
It has it's own operators, theorems, etc, and is used extensively in philosophy

[genxlibertarian]

So if I understand Constructor Theory correctly...

"In this world there are only two laws that matter. What a man can do, and what a man can't."
- Captain Jack Sparrow, a physicist ahead of his time.

[michaelkreitzer]

"Be careful! The devs WILL notice." - This has got to be the funniest yet most existentially disturbing reply ever made on this channel.

[dattasubrahmanyam]

I sleep with your astrophysics theories & videos. Well, this has been my Naptime channel. Whenever I feel stressed or a need for nap, I watch this. Love from India 🇮🇳

[Taramushi]

I watched a lecture right here on YouTube about this topic, and while the idea of counterfactuals were discussed at length I walked away from the conversation feeling that the whole thing sounded kind of dumb. But I don't think it was idea of Constructor Theory itself, but instead how the participants danced around the topic, delving into philosophy debates instead of explaining existing ideas behind it. Like they were discussing the meta of Chess without ever explaining what the game even was. But here in just 8 minutes I was able to go, "Oh that's what they meant!"

[SorFig]

This sounds reminiscent of Gödel's incompleteness theorem. He was able to abstract away the mathematical operations and describe any possible equation as a binary choice between it being true or false, much like how the counterfactuals are either possible or impossible and allow you to ignore the specific equations themselves.

[MichaelEhling]

This is the best explanation of counterfactuals and Constructor Theory I've seen. I am sure a lot of good work went in to making it so simple to understand. Thank you.

[xaphyrthefirst]

This feels a lot like what Gödel did but in the context of physics. Mathematics is extremely rigorously formalised and consistent across all areas of study and as much pain as that brings me in my maths lectures, I think a similar level of purity and formality in our language and axioms could really benefit physicists.

[shirtdirt]

The Devs already noticed, and they're literally making things up for us to measure.

[deitylink]

Wouldn't constructor theory fundamentally be assuming we know all the base sets of rules in order to be correct? Otherwise it could rule out things that are possible, but they just don't have a truth statement for in the base set of rules.

[cluebcke]

Rough shade on Newton with that whole "you can't transmute apples into gold" line

[enhydralutra]

This sounds an awful lot like an approach to leaning geometry through construction. In fact, Constructor Theory seems to have a lot in common with how we do mathematical proofs in the first place. I'm surprised it took this long for it to be applied to physics.

[kessilrun]

It would definitely revolutionize how science is taught in schools anyway. Whether it is the all in one thing that ties them together, or not. It could be incredibly useful as a learning tool.

[dojoguitare]

Constructor theory seems to parallel David Hilbert's efforts to formalize all of mathematics before Kurt Gödel showed that such a task was impossible.

[NestorKYAT]

Isn't this more of an epistemological framework than a theory? Not that there's anything wrong with that. I think everything would be better if physicists and philosophers of science collaborated more or if more physicists were more philosophically inclined (like Sean Carroll, for instance)

[fatetreat]

oh my god, mobs tapping on walls and measuring frame rates had me rolling

[RossHewitt]

Sounds like it should be called the Sherlock theory - “when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth”.

[pauljonesdemos]

Do equivalent forms of Gödel’s Incompleteness Theorem and Turing’s Halting Problem exist within Constructor Theory?
Could something (say for example Quantum Gravity) be unprovable in Constructor Theory yet still be possible?