A Physics Renaissance Is Coming

"They understood living things as machines, albeit ones made of gooey parts. A subfield called biophysics uncovered specific physical mechanisms behind those molecular machines. Organisms as a whole, however, were not a major concern. But today, many of my colleagues in physics no longer agree with such dismissals. Instead, we have come to believe that a mystery is unfolding in every microbe, animal, and human-one that challenges basic assumptions physicists have held for centuries, and could answer essential questions about AI."

"The central hubris of physics has long been the idea that it is the most "fundamental" of all sciences. Physics students learn about the basic stuff of reality-space and time, energy and matter-and are told that all other scientific disciplines must reduce back down to the fundamental particles and laws that physics has generated. This philosophy, called "reductionism," worked pretty well from Newton's laws through much of the 20th century as physicists discovered electrons, quarks, the theory of relativity, and so on."

A 2024 Nobel Prize awarded for AI prompted scrutiny of physics' boundaries. For much of the 20th century, physicists largely ignored organisms, treating living things as mechanical systems studied at molecular scales by biophysics. Increasingly, physicists now view organisms as sites of deep puzzles that challenge long-held assumptions and may illuminate principles relevant to artificial intelligence. The dominant belief in reductionism—that all phenomena must ultimately be explained by fundamental particles and laws—guided physics for decades. Progress in the most reductionist programs has slowed, prompting interest in alternative, higher-level mathematical and conceptual approaches that integrate life, information, and complexity.

Read at The Atlantic