Can Number Theory Enhance Our Understanding of 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!