https://hackerpaper.kaipfister.de/p/1409.2794/Collected HN comments and submissions linking this paper.enMon, 02 Nov 2026 11:16:22 GMThttps://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8378399urn:hackerpapers:mention:1409.2794:8378399Sat, 27 Sep 2014 22:34:24 GMT<p>I mean, sure, it&#x27;s going to be turtles the whole way down if you&#x27;re looking to define the universe without resorting to physical quantities (that is, dimensioned units). We don&#x27;t have anything like a Grand Unified Theory yet, wherein we define Physics by means of some elemental mathematics (in the form that we can bootstrap computation from lambda calculus via things like the Y Combinator [0]). Besides, we occasionally give dimensional names to dimensionless quantities (my favorite being the engineering unit the inverse radian) [1]. It&#x27;s a useful abstraction, and it seems confusing to…</p><p><a href="https://hackerpaper.kaipfister.de/p/1409.2794/">Paper and discussion history</a>. A mention is not an endorsement.</p>physics.data-an