Related papers: On the emergence of the structure of Physics
This paper elaborates on an intrinsically quantum approach to gravity, which begins with a general framework for quantum mechanics and then seeks to identify additional mathematical structure on Hilbert space that is responsible for gravity…
Since the advent of quantum mechanics we have mainly been concerned with its predictions from the perspective of an external observer. This is in strong contrast to the theory of general relativity, where the physics is governed by the…
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…
The problem of constructing a quantum theory of gravity is considered from a novel viewpoint. It is argued that any consistent theory of gravity should incorporate a relational character between the matter constituents of the theory. In…
A "quantum-first" approach to gravity is described, where rather than quantizing general relativity, one seeks to formulate the physics of gravity within a quantum-mechanical framework with suitably general postulates. Important guides are…
We present a heuristic derivation of Born's rule and unitary transforms in Quantum Mechanics, from a simple set of axioms built upon a physical phenomenology of quantization. This approach naturally leads to the usual quantum formalism,…
A underlying dynamical structure for both relativity and quantum theory-``superrelativity'' has been proposed in order to overcome the well known incompatibility between these theories. The relationship between curvature of spacetime…
So far, none of attempts to quantize gravity has led to a satisfactory model that not only describe gravity in the realm of a quantum world, but also its relation to elementary particles and other fundamental forces. Here, we outline the…
There has been a body of works deriving the complex Hilbert space structure of quantum theory from axioms/principles/postulates to deepen our understanding about quantum theory and to reveal ways to go beyond it to resolve foundational…
Quantum gravity has become a fertile interface between gravitational physics and quantum many-body physics, with its double goal of identifying the microscopic constituents of the universe and their fundamental dynamics, and of…
Despite its enormous empirical success, the formalism of quantum theory still raises fundamental questions: why is nature described in terms of complex Hilbert spaces, and what modifications of it could we reasonably expect to find in some…
After reviewing various interpretations of structural realism, I adopt here a definition that allows both relations between things that are already individuated (which I call ``relations between things'') and relations that individuate…
If gravity respects quantum mechanics, it is important to identify the essential postulates of a quantum framework capable of incorporating gravitational phenomena. Such a construct likely requires elimination or modification of some of the…
General relativity is a background-independent theory of a dynamical classical spacetime geometry. Quantum theory is formulated in a classical spacetime, as an intrinsically probabilistic, contextual theory of non-classical, interfering…
Quantum theory is usually formulated in terms of abstract mathematical postulates, involving Hilbert spaces, state vectors, and unitary operators. In this work, we show that the full formalism of quantum theory can instead be derived from…
Theories of quantum gravity generically presuppose or predict that the reality underlying relativistic spacetimes they are describing is significantly non-spatiotemporal. On pain of empirical incoherence, approaches to quantum gravity must…
Quantum gravity (or quantum spacetime) is to unify general relativity and quantum mechanics into a single theoretical framework and presented as the most important open puzzle in fundamental physics. The development of a microscopic theory…
We explain why and how the Hilbert space comes about in quantum theory. The axiomatic structures of vector space, of scalar product, of orthogonality, and of the linear functional are derivable from the statistical description of quantum…
Five physical assumptions are proposed that together entail the general qualitative results, including the Born rule, of non-relativistic quantum mechanics by physical and information-theoretic reasoning alone. Two of these assumptions…
Although general relativity is a predictively successful theory, it treats matter as classical rather than as quantum. For this reason, it will have to be replaced by a more fundamental quantum theory of gravity. Attempts to formulate a…