Related papers: Clockwork Quantum Universe
A practical way to deal with the problem of time in quantum cosmology and quantum gravity is proposed. The main tool is effective equations, which mainly restrict explicit considerations to semiclassical regimes but have the crucial…
Classical mechanics, relativity, electrodynamics and quantum mechanics are often depicted as separate realms of physics, each with its own formalism and notion. This remains unsatisfactory with respect to the unity of nature and to the…
In Elementary Cycles theory elementary quantum particles are consistently described as the manifestation of ultra-fast relativistic spacetime cyclic dynamics, classical in the essence. The peculiar relativistic geometrodynamics of…
Conventional approaches to quantum gravity regard quantum principles, such as nonlocality and superposition, as fundamental properties of nature and therefore argue that gravity must also be quantized. In contrast, this work introduces a…
The most striking observable feature of our indeterministic quantum universe is the wide range of time, place, and scale on which the deterministic laws of classical physics hold to an excellent approximation. This essay describes how this…
A pedagogical introduction is given to the quantum mechanics of closed systems, most generally the universe as a whole. Quantum mechanics aims at predicting the probabilities of alternative coarse-grained time histories of a closed system.…
By investigating the Feynman Path Integral we prove that elementary quantum particle dynamics are directly associated to single compact (cyclic) world-line parameters, playing the role of the particles' internal clock, implicit in ordinary…
At the intersection of quantum theory and relativity lies the possibility of a clock experiencing a superposition of proper times. We consider quantum clocks constructed from the internal degrees of relativistic particles that move through…
Local operators are the basic observables in quantum field theory which encode the physics observed by a local experimentalist. However, when gravity is dynamical, diffeomorphism symmetries are gauged which apparently obstructs a sensible…
The paper is intended to clarify operational meaning of mass and time quantities as main characteristics of an atomic clock, which is considered a quantum oscillator in association with the de Broglie wave concept. The specification of the…
Is the universe digital or analog? In this essay I argue that both classical and quantum physics include limits that prevent us from definitively answering that question. That quantum physics does so is no surprise. That classical physics…
A method has been recently proposed for defining an arbitrary number of differential calculi over a given noncommutative associative algebra. As an example a version of quantized space-time is considered here. It is found that there is a…
Relative motion of particles is examined in the context of relational space-time. It is shown that de Broglie waves may be derived as a representation of the coordinate maps between the rest-frames of these particles. Energy and momentum…
The existence of small amounts of advanced radiation, or a tilt in the arrow of time, makes the basic equations of physics mixed-type functional differential equations. The novel features of such equations point to a microphysical structure…
It is expected that a quantum theory of gravity will radically alter our current notion of spacetime geometry. However, contrary to what was commonly assumed for many decades, quantum gravity effects could manifest in scales much larger…
Quantum gravity is sometimes considered as a kind of metaphysical speculation. In this review, we show that, although still extremely difficult to reach, observational signatures can in fact be expected. The early universe is an invaluable…
The nature of time in quantum mechanics is closely related to the use of a complex, rather than say real, Hilbert space. This becomes particularly clear when considering quantum field theory in time dependent backgrounds, such as in…
We investigate the possibility that the quantum theory of gravity could be constructed discretely using algebraic methods. The algebraic tools are similar to ones used in constructing topological quantum field theories.The algebraic tools…
We argue that (1) our perception of time through change and (2) the gap between reality and our observation of it are at the heart of both quantum mechanics and the dynamical mechanism of physical systems. We suggest that the origin of…
We introduced with coauthors some years ago a solution to the problem of time in quantum gravity which consists in formulating the quantum theory in terms of real clocks. It combines Page and Wootters' relational proposal with Rovelli's…