Podcast: Could 'counterfactuals' solve the biggest problems in physics?
Physicist Chiara Marletto, author of The Science of Can and Can't, explains what counterfactuals are and how they can show us the whole picture.
Most laws of physics tell us what must happen. Throw a ball in the air and it will come back down. But physicist Chiara Marletto, a Research Fellow at the University of Oxford, says that laws like this only tell us part of the story.
She believes that the rest lies in 'counterfactuals': things that could be.
In her new book, The Science of Can and Can’t (£20, Allen Lane), she explains how these counterfactual properties could solve many of science’s biggest outstanding problems.
Let us know what you think of the episode with a review or a comment wherever you listen to your podcasts.
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