Sunday 21 January 2018

Compressibility of Form as a Measure of Depth (of Meaning)

Following Murray Gell-Mann we can see the development of Maxwell's equations from tensorial differential equations to a more stream-lined differential form.

Ultimately we can write Maxwells Equation in terms of differential forms: d*F=j and dF=0. That is it!

Gell-Mann follows the Computation crowd in referring to the high Information Content of this deceptively simple but dense form. Such simple algebraic form belies the sophistication of the associated differential geometry.




Might it be though that just because we are not schooled earlier in Lie Algebras or multi-vector calculus this merely appears more sophisticated?

An historical artefact in the evolution of our ideas perhaps?

If the greats upon whose shoulders we stand had revealed these formulations earlier (before the precedents) would we ascribe such high informational content to such dense constructions?

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