Number Theory in physics?

romsofia

This semester I decided to take elementary number theory instead of intro to philosophy.

While I so far am enjoying the class, I'm a physics major, and am looking to pursue research in gravity later down the road (only a freshman, so that's far away).

The description for the course: This course introduces the basic concepts of number theory including the Euclidean algorithm, congruences, number-theoretic functions, and the Chinese remainder theorem.

My question is: Would any of these topics come up at in gravity, or any other field in physics?

Thanks for your time.

voko

Not very likely, but who knows. There are some theories that describe space as a finite lattice, so number theory could have some implications there.

Cthugha

It is not really widespread, but there are some people working on the connection between quantum physics, especially quantum optics and number theory.

Have a look at the research web page of Wolfgang Schleich at the university of Ulm (http://www.physik.uni-ulm.de/quan/research/nth.html) and check some of the publications linked there. He has done some interesting research on what the Gauss sum has to do with the particle-in-a-box problem and how the Riemann zeta function is connected to the thermal phase state of an anharmonic oscillator. However, I am not aware of direct applications in terms of research on gravity.

romsofia

That is a pretty cool :).

Thanks for the help!