Ab Initio Thoughts

[brookeramey]

I definitely would agree that Classical Mechanics is an ab initio model, but only at the macroscopic scale, relying on Newton’s Laws to describe motion and predict systems behavior mathematically. But Quantum Mechanics can describe what is happening on the microscopic, or more fundamental level, so in that case it could be thought of as being a “better” ab initio model than classical mechanics axioms. However, for all intents and purposes, sometimes you don’t need quantum mechanical axioms to describe macroscopic systems, like building a bridge or determining the trajectory of a planet’s orbit, because it is simply overkill, and to describe every single atom in a bridge in an ab initio way in order to make the bridge might as well take an infinite amount of time to compute. But classical mechanics axioms cannot describe electron tunneling, or particle-wave duality, or entanglement, and many other quantum phenomenon that we need to understand things like photosynthesis, how transistors work, or how fusion occurs in the sun. In addition, I would agree that classical electromagnetism is also an ab initio model in it’s own right because every electromagnetic interaction can be traced back to its first principles of Maxwell’s equation or the Lorentz force, as well as charge conservation. I like to think as classical electromagnetism as being the bridge between classical mechanics and quantum mechanics, especially when things like relativity come in to play.

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