The End of Time: The Next Revolution in Physics by Julian Barbour

Author:Julian Barbour [Barbour, Julian]
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Published: 2000-01-27T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 13

The Lesser Mysteries

INTRODUCTION

Most accounts of quantum mechanics concentrate on the simplest situations – the behaviour of a single particle. That is already very surprising. But the really mysterious properties come to light only in composite systems of several particles, whose behaviour can become bafflingly correlated. The situation is currently very exciting because experimentalists are now able to study two widely separated but strongly correlated particles. Their observations confirm quantum mechanics brilliantly but stretch human intuition to the limit. How can such things happen in space and time? And what unbelievable scenarios will a quantum universe present?

I suspect that the present astonishment exists because most quantum theoreticians do not think enough about quantum cosmology. The first issue is its arena. Quantum mechanics is currently presented in a hybrid framework of two arenas at once. One is an abstract mathematical construct known as Hilbert space, but its elements are essentially defined by absolute space and time, which comprise the second arena. Quantum mechanics takes both for granted. But they provide only a dubious foundation for quantum cosmology. Clarity cannot be achieved until this hybrid state is ended: the space-time framework must go. The answer to the question of how such things can happen in space and time is that they do not. They neither happen nor are they to be found in space and time. But these things are, and their being is in Platonia, which must replace the Hilbert space erected on the shaky foundations of absolute space and time. That, at least, is my view.

My account of wave mechanics will aim to show that the demise of space and time is inevitable. We shall first see how a single particle is described in space and time, and then see what happens when we try to describe the universe. Space and time ‘evaporate’, and we are left with the one true arena – timeless Platonia. In this arena, quantum mechanics seems to me to take on a totally transparent form. Whether we can believe in it is another matter.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.