I’m convinced you could construct parallel physics with completely different mechanics (maybe the narrow trails aren’t as narrow as you’d think?) and get exactly the same results.
Depends on what you mean by ‘different mechanics.’ Weinberg’s field theory textbook develops the argument that only quantum field theory, as a structure, allows for certain phenomenologically important characteristics (mostly cluster decomposition).
However, there IS an enormous amount of leeway within the field theory- you can make a theory where electric monopoles exist as explicit degrees of freedom, and magnetic monopoles are topological gauge-field configurations and its dual to a theory where magnetic monopoles are the degrees of freedom and electric monopoles exist as field configurations. While these theories SEEM very different, they make identical predictions.
Similarly, if you can only make finite numbers of measurements, adding extra dimensions is equivalent to adding lots of additional forces (the dimensional deconstruction idea), etc. Some 5d theories with gravity make the same predictions as some 4d theories without.
Depends on what you mean by ‘different mechanics.’ Weinberg’s field theory textbook develops the argument that only quantum field theory, as a structure, allows for certain phenomenologically important characteristics (mostly cluster decomposition).
However, there IS an enormous amount of leeway within the field theory- you can make a theory where electric monopoles exist as explicit degrees of freedom, and magnetic monopoles are topological gauge-field configurations and its dual to a theory where magnetic monopoles are the degrees of freedom and electric monopoles exist as field configurations. While these theories SEEM very different, they make identical predictions.
Similarly, if you can only make finite numbers of measurements, adding extra dimensions is equivalent to adding lots of additional forces (the dimensional deconstruction idea), etc. Some 5d theories with gravity make the same predictions as some 4d theories without.