Prof. Dr. Gerhard Mack


II. Institut für Theoretische Physik
Universität Hamburg
Luruper Chaussee 149
22761 Hamburg

Office: 2a/612

Phone: + 49 - (0)40 8998-3611

Fax: + 49 - (0)40 8998-2267

E-mail: gerhard.mack(a)


About Complex Systems

Most physical theories share common structure. As in other fields of science (biology and sociology), one can very often distinguish between classes of objects and classes of relations between those objects. For the following it will be important to assume that relations should be composable.

In physical theories one finds for example pointlike masses and gravitational forces between them. One can also find examples in daily life: people who are married. In particular such a separation into classes of objects and classes of relations is possible for the fundamental theories of physics, i.e. gauge theories. They treat state spaces as objects and gauge fields as relations and general relativity respectively with space-time points as objects and parallel transporters between them. This is explained in some detail in a recent paper ("Pushing Einstein's Principles to the Extreme"). Those ideas are similar to the way Wittgenstein describes the process of human thinking in his tractatus logico philosophicus.