Space-time is doomed! So says David Gross, Nobel Laureate in Theoretical Physics. And he has plenty of company in the physics community. He doesn’t mean that space-time itself is doomed, but that our concept of it has to go. Here’s why…
Theoretical physics — concerned with the basics of how the Cosmos works — is roughly divided into two fundamental branches. The first is concerned with the really big and really fast — that would be Relativity, dealing with speeds of light (‘Special Relativity”) and the gravitational fields of stars and such (”General Relativity”). The other is concerned with the really small — the building blocks of atoms themselves — that would be Quantum Physics.
Both Relativity and Quantum Physics have been confirmed by massive amounts of experimental evidence. We’ll skip entirely any attempt at any detail. Instead, here’s a painless math-free metaphorical ‘flavor’ of their differences:
- In Relativity the Cosmos is smooth. In Quantum Physics, the Cosmos is fundamentally chunky (a ‘quantum’ is one ‘chunk’).
- In Relativity, ‘chance’ is not involved at all, whereas in Quantum Physics everything is determined by ‘chance’.
- In Relativity, space-time is curvy and fluid, whereas in Quantum Physics it’s flat and stable.
- The maths involved in Quantum Physics vs. General Relativity are fundamentally different. When you plug the math of one into the other, you get a mathematical meltdown, so apparently the two theories don’t play well together.
So now some physicists wonder if the problem may be our understanding of space-time itself. Today we assume that space and time are fundamental, that nothing is more real or basic than they. But what if there’s a deeper reality behind ‘space’ and ‘time’, and what we understand as space and time are artifacts of this deeper physical reality? A ‘reality’ that we are unable to perceive directly? This isn’t New Age thinking, it’s Physics!
This reminds me of the famous Buddhist “Heart Sutra’ (a ‘sutra’ is something like a sacred sermon), which denies the fundamental reality of our perceptions:
… there is no form, no feeling, no perception, no mental formations, no consciousness; no eye, no ear, no nose, no tongue, no body, no mind; no form, no sound, no smell, no taste, no touch, no object of mind; no realm of sight, no realm of consciousness, no ignorance, no end to ignorance…
Ha, maybe ancient Buddhists in deep meditation were ahead of our modern Theoretical Physicists! Just a fun thought.
The point is that what may seem like ‘settled fact’ may not be so at all. If even ‘space’ and ‘time’ aren’t settled fact, what else isn’t? How many ‘settled facts’ which are in fact false are there about ourselves? Or of what humanity is capable? Or maybe when I seem stuck — what ‘unchangeable’ factor might be changeable after all?
I’m reminded of this quip:
“It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so. “ – Mark Twain
So when things are tough, or seem hopeless, I find hope in the idea that the Cosmos is much bigger, and much more Mysterious than my tiny grasp of it. I, and humanity collectively, have a finite grasp of the infinite. That’s our lot as finite mortal humans. And that’s OK.
(To be continued…)
