Conversation

Philip Anderson's mantra that "more is different" is a deceptively profound idea. I used to teach a one-day physics class for high school students. When I explained "more is different", some students were enfuriated and some felt enlightened. But no one felt like it was obvious.
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Such an important idea for science: that there is a veil of ignorance separating different levels of description, and each one must be studied in its own right. No field of science is "just an applied version" of some other field. Each level of reality must be respected equally.
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