Gödel taught us that mathematics is incomplete. Turing taught us some problems are undecidable. Lorenz taught us that, try as we might, some things will remain unpredictable. Are such theorems relevant for the real world or are they merely academic curiosities? In this essay, I first explain why one can rightfully be skeptical of the scientific relevance of mathematically proved impossibilities, but that, upon closer inspection, they are both interesting and important.
Sabine Hossenfelder