Related papers: Beyond Quantum Mechanics and General Relativity
A major unsolved problem in theoretical physics is to reconcile the classical theory of general relativity with quantum mechanics. These lectures will deal with an attempt to describe quantum gravity as a path integral over geometries known…
The present essay provides a new metaphysical interpretation of Relational Quantum Mechanics (RQM) in terms of mereological bundle theory. The essential idea is to claim that a physical system in RQM can be defined as a mereological fusion…
One hundred years ago this year attempts began to generalise general relativity with the ambition of incorporating electromagnetism alongside gravitation in a unified field theory. These developments led to gauge theories and models with…
It is generally assumed that the search for a consistent and testable theory of quantum gravity is among the most important open problems of fundamental physics. I review the motivations for this search, the main problems on the way, and…
The roles that spin networks play in gauge theories, quantum gravity and topological quantum field theory are briefly described, with an emphasis on the question of the relationships among them. It is argued that spin networks and their…
This paper presents a research program aimed at establishing relational foundations for relativistic quantum physics. Although the formalism is still under development, we believe it has matured enough to be shared with the broader…
The quantum principle of relativity (QPR) puts forward an ambitious idea: extend special relativity with a formally superluminal branch of Lorentz-type maps, and treat the resulting consistency constraints as hints about why quantum theory…
This white paper aims to identify an open problem in 'Quantum Physics and the Nature of Reality' --namely whether quantum theory and special relativity are formally compatible--, to indicate what the underlying issues are, and put forward…
A proper deformation of the underlying coordinate and momentum commutation relations in quantum mechanics provides a phenomenological approach to account for the influence of gravity on small scales. Introducing the squared momentum term…
Investigating quantum gravity requires a comprehension of both, general relativity and quantum field theory. Therefore this thesis starts, after a general introduction to the treated topics, with a brief review of the field theoretical…
From the analysis of the quantum and relativistic properties of the particles it results the unified quantum-relativistic dynamics of the physical reality (Universe).
It is argued that quantum gravity has an interpretation as a topological field theory provided a certain constraint from the path intergral measure is respected. The constraint forces us to couple gauge and matter fields to gravity for…
Over the past 25 years, I have been involved in some intriguing developments in the foundations of physics, exploring the quantum reality problem, the relationship between quantum theory and gravity and the interplay between consciousness…
Although the wish to unify theories into something more fundamental is omnipresent and compelling, nonetheless, in a sense, theories must first be unifiable. The reasons for the success of the unification of electricity and magnetism into a…
Understanding the quantum nature of spacetime and gravity remains one of the most ambitious goals of theoretical physics. It promises to provide key new insights into fundamental particle theory, astrophysics, cosmology and the foundations…
We describe a theory amalgamating quantum theory and general relativity through the identification of a continuous 4-dimensional spacetime arena constructed from the substructures of a generalised multi-dimensional form for proper time. In…
It is shown that the independence of the continuum hypothesis points to the unique definite status of the set of intermediate cardinality: the intermediate set exists only as a subset of continuum. This latent status is a consequence of…
Experimental evidene of the last decades has made the status of "collapses of the wave function" even more shaky than it already was on conceptual grounds: interference effects turn out to be detectable even when collapses are typically…
Quantum mechanics is usually presented starting from a series of postulates about the mathematical framework. In this work we show that those same postulates can be derived by assuming that measurements are discrete interactions: that is,…
Assuming the validity of the equivalence principle in the quantum regime, we argue that one of the assumptions of the usual definition of quantum mechanics, namely separation between the ``classical'' detector and the ``quantum'' system,…