ETTORE MAJORANA AND THE IMPLICIT PRINCIPLE OF PHYSICAL REALIZABILITY

This paper identifies and formalizes a single methodological constraint implicit across Ettore Majorana’s work: mathematical structure is admissible in physics only if it corresponds to a physically realizable, enforceable distinction. By examining Majorana’s systematic eliminations of non-operational degrees of freedom—such as redundant phases and indistinguishable labels—the paper shows that his extreme structural economy follows by logical necessity rather than aesthetic preference or biography. The argument treats Majorana’s revisions as consistent applications of a prior admissibility filter that removes any mathematical surplus lacking interactional enforcement, yielding theories composed exclusively of physically instantiable elements. The result is a mechanism-first criterion that clarifies the boundary between formal description and physical ontology.