22 questions linked to/from The Role of Rigor
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### Formalizing Quantum Field Theory [duplicate]

I'm wondering about current efforts to provide mathematical foundations and more solid definition for quantum field theories. I am aware of such efforts in the context of the simpler topological or ...
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### Is mathematical rigour irrelevant in most physics fields? [duplicate]

Are mathematical notions like closed sets, limits of sequences, measures, and function spaces basically irrelevant in the day to day work of a physicist? Naturally, such concepts are the foundations ...
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### Is rigorous functional analysis useful for theoretical physics? [duplicate]

I'm an undergraduate physics without much quantum mechanics at all under my belt. I'm studying functional analysis, and I want to know whether or not this will be useful for me in theoretical physics ...
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### Quantum Field Theory from a mathematical point of view

I'm a student of mathematics with not much background in physics. I'm interested in learning Quantum field theory from a mathematical point of view. Are there any good books or other reference ...
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### Rigor in quantum field theory

Quantum field theory is a broad subject and has the reputation of using methods which are mathematically desiring. For example working with and subtracting infinities or the use of path integrals, ...
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### Is physics rigorous in the mathematical sense?

I am a student studying Mathematics with no prior knowledge of Physics whatsoever except for very simple equations. I would like to ask, due to my experience with Mathematics: Is there a set of ...
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### What is the issue with interactions in QFT?

I've started studying QFT this year and in trying to find a more rigorous approach to the subject I ended up find out lots of people saying that "there is no way known yet to make QFT rigorous when ...
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### Wick rotation in field theory - rigorous justification?

What is the rigorous justification of Wick rotation in QFT? I'm aware that it is very useful when calculating loop integrals and one can very easily justify it there. However, I haven't seen a ...
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### What happened with Hilbert's sixth problem (the axiomatization of physics) after Gödel's work?

I'll write the question but I'm not fully confident of the premises I'm making here. I'm sorry if my proposal is too silly. Hilbert's sixth problem consisted roughly about finding axioms for physics (...
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### How important is mathematical proof in physics?

How important are proofs in physics? If something is mathematically proven to follow from something we know is true, does it still require experimental verification? Are there examples of things that ...
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### What does it mean for a QFT to not be well-defined?

It is usually said that QED, for instance, is not a well-defined QFT. It has to be embedded or completed in order to make it consistent. Most of these arguments amount to using the renormalization ...
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### Are derivations of physical laws less important than the laws themselves? [closed]

The proportionality between the kinetic energy of gas molecules and temperature is a well-known result. This is usually shown by considering a cubical box containing an ideal gas, and postulating that ...
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### Is there a way to justify perturbation theory in QFT?

I can accept that some problems do require a perturbation theory approach to be solved. The development of perturbation theory is perfectly rigorous. So at first, even though many people say that no ...
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### Why does the Copenhagen interpretation assert randomness if this cannot be tested?

Why does the Copenhagen interpretation of QM assert that random events occur if such a claim cannot ever be proven or disproven? A related question: How to tell if QM is really random? Edit On ...
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### The Role of Rigor II

The purpose of this question is to supplement an earlier question The Role of Rigor and to ask about the role of mathematical rigor in physics. In order to formulate a question that can be answered, ...
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### Delta functional in path integrals

In a few articles dealing with path integral quantization I came across some calculations where apparently identities of the form \int (\mathcal{D}\Phi)\, \delta(-\partial_0\Phi+j)\,\,...
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### QFT as a rigorous mathematical theory [duplicate]

I understood that quantum field theory is essentially based on a problematic mathematical basis. Can someone please explain what is the fundamental problem to formulate QFT as a rigorous mathematical ...
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### Set theories used in mathematical physical theories

For most theorems, this is unimportant - a typical problem will have the same solutions in NFU, ZFC or some other theory, since said theories got popular precisely because they give pretty much the ...
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### Rigorous mathematical formalism of particle physics

Can anyone provide me with a rigorous mathematical definition of the fundamental particles (all fundamental bosons and fermions), reflecting the analogy of action of groups with interaction of ...
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### Trajectories piecewise smooth?

In my studies of calculus and real analysis I have found the proofs of several theorems, commonly used in physics, such as those concerning the conservativity of fields, for example like If \$\...