this post was submitted on 14 Jun 2025
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Even if they had a complete model of all of physics, it still wouldn't answer all questions, as a lot of important data is just random. Whether nature decided to go with D-molecule or L-molecule is essentially random.
Even if you have an equation, doesn't mean you can solve it. N-body problem is a perfect example.
You cannot determine all the Parameters of the equations accurately. Changing the parameters could drastically alter the output behavior. Finally, you don't know the initial conditions too.
These are the challenges that classical physics have to deal with. Quantum is not even factored into, yet.
Welcome to the land of Nonlinear Dynamics. We have bifurcations, strange attractors and of course, whole lotta chaos.
I would argue that the choice of L- or D-molecules is not a physics question so much as a chemistry/biology one.
still an important question
sometimes you hear people say that when we have "figured out everything about physics", then we'd have figured out everything about the world, as the world is guided by physical principles.
The hubris of that statement could only come from a physicist! We would indeed have a foundation upon which to understand ~~everything~~ many things, if only we could keep up with issues like scale, events happening far away, and historical choices as you pointed it.
https://i.imgur.com/w9w0Acb.jpeg
iirc L-aminoacids and D-sugars, that is these observed in nature, are very slightly more stable than the opposite because of weak interaction
probably it's just down to a specific piece of quartz or soot that got lucky and chiral amplification gets you from there
also it's not physics, or more precisely it's a very physicy subbranch of chemistry, and it's done by chemists because physicists suck at doing chemistry for some reason (i've seen it firsthand)