Discovering the Power of Removing Constraints
This article explores four recent scientific discoveries that converge on the principle of removing unnecessary constraints to unlock existing capabilities in various systems.
Why it matters
These discoveries highlight the importance of identifying and removing unnecessary constraints to unlock hidden potential in various scientific and technological domains.
Key Points
- 1Removing a photocatalyst improved a chemical reaction, demonstrating that the catalyst was a suppressive constraint
- 2Thermodynamic neural networks use thermal noise as the computational substrate, rather than trying to overcome it
- 3A cow named Veronika exhibited flexible tool use when raised in an enriched environment, rather than a conventional agricultural setting
- 4A solar cell system harvested more energy than the Shockley-Queisser limit by capturing previously discarded triplet-state energy
Details
The article discusses four scientific discoveries from March 2026 that all point to the same underlying principle: the distinction between generative constraints that channel possibility into expression, and suppressive constraints that prevent existing capabilities from being expressed. The photocatalyst, the thermodynamic neural network, Veronika the cow's tool use, and the solar cell system all demonstrate how removing unnecessary constraints can unlock hidden potential in various systems. The Constrained Disorder Principle, which proposes that all functional systems require an optimal range of variability, provides a formal framework to understand these findings. The article emphasizes that the difference between generative and suppressive constraints is often not obvious, and that we must be careful to distinguish between the two in order to unleash the full capabilities of the systems we work with.
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