The concept of time in QM and Relativity Theories

psēlaphaō · #1 by **psēlaphaō** » Jan 24, 2014 4:41 pm

To the degree that I think I understand the conception of time in Relativity Theories, it seems as though, in a sense, everything has "already happened" and that the velocity of an observer determines how she/he observes the passage of time relative to someone else in an already baked space-time. No doubt that is way oversimplified, but hopefully it is a "close enough" accounting of the physics of time in Relativity Theories - if not, then I would appreciate anyone trained in physics giving me an explanation of the nature of time in Relativity Theories.

With Quantum Mechanics theory, I have Googled a lot and yet I haven't found what appears to me to be a good explanation of the conception of time in QM. On the surface, though, it doesn't seems as though the conception of time in QM could be the same as in Relativity Theories (as I understand them at the moment). How could there be quantum randomness (assuming the randomness is actual and not just epistemological) in an already baked space-time?

A closely associated question that I have is that if I understand it correctly, it sure seems like Relativity Theories are deterministic and QM theory is not. Again, I would appreciate anyone with some solid training in physics could shed some light on this.

psēlaphaō · #2 by **psēlaphaō** » Jan 25, 2014 1:13 pm

I guess there is something wrong with my questions or not a topic of interest to anyone here, but I did find this web page that delves into some of what I was asking about:

http://www.informationphilosopher.com/f ... ivity.html

igorfrankensteen · #3 by **igorfrankensteen** » Jan 25, 2014 1:53 pm

Looks like a Creationist website to me.

ughaibu · #4 by **ughaibu** » Jan 25, 2014 2:42 pm

igorfrankensteen wrote:Looks like a Creationist website to me.

Why?

kennyc · #5 by **kennyc** » Jan 25, 2014 3:24 pm

Lee Smolin discusses this extensively in his latest book Time Reborn. I'd suggest you start there and also with Sean Carroll's From Eternity to Here.

http://www.amazon.com/Time-Reborn-Crisi ... 0547511728

http://www.amazon.com/Eternity-Here-Sea ... ty+to+here

kennyc · #6 by **kennyc** » Jan 25, 2014 3:26 pm

ughaibu wrote:
igorfrankensteen wrote:Looks like a Creationist website to me.
Why?

Perhaps this: Roger Penrose thinks that nonlocality can help to explain consciousness.

:lol:

kennyc · #7 by **kennyc** » Jan 25, 2014 3:34 pm

psēlaphaō wrote:...

With Quantum Mechanics theory, I have Googled a lot and yet I haven't found what appears to me to be a good explanation of the conception of time in QM. ....

well when I googled I got this: https://www.google.com/search?q=quantum ... 2&ie=UTF-8

seems some quite extensive information about time and quanta....

JSS · #8 by **JSS** » Jan 25, 2014 4:55 pm

Time is the measure of relative change, throughout all of Science.

psēlaphaō · #9 by **psēlaphaō** » Jan 25, 2014 5:14 pm

kennyc wrote:
psēlaphaō wrote:...

With Quantum Mechanics theory, I have Googled a lot and yet I haven't found what appears to me to be a good explanation of the conception of time in QM. ....

well when I googled I got this: https://www.google.com/search?q=quantum ... 2&ie=UTF-8

seems some quite extensive information about time and quanta....

Thanks for the link (and the previous links on Smolin's books). I think what had happened in my previous searches (some months ago) is that I wasn't seeing a consensus about the meaning of "time" in QM and I sloppily expressed that in the OP as not being able to find a "good explanation" of time in QM. Perusing the sites in the Google search link you provided, the meaning of time in QM seems to be open to quite a bit of debate. Mostly I just was asking for people's ideas on the "block universe" conception of time as a common interpretation of Special Relativity and whether or not that is logically consistent with conception(s) of time in QM (especially with respect to quantum randomness).

I'm mostly posting here to clarify things that I haven't been able to clarify for myself. I can understand that questions I ask may seem tedious or uninteresting to someone well versed in the topic and they don't want to bother answering.

kennyc · **#10** by **kennyc** » Jan 25, 2014 5:24 pm

Well just based on the recent 'popular' books and the on-going science I don't think it's tedious at all. Certainly something worthy of discussion. Way moreso than some of the 'other' stuff on this forum.

newolder · **#11** by **newolder** » Jan 25, 2014 5:34 pm

see also the time independent Schroedinger equation: http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hb ... eq.html#c4

useful when time is not (of) the essence. :cheers:

psēlaphaō · **#12** by **psēlaphaō** » Jan 25, 2014 6:26 pm

kennyc wrote:
ughaibu wrote:
igorfrankensteen wrote:Looks like a Creationist website to me.
Why?

Perhaps this: Roger Penrose thinks that nonlocality can help to explain consciousness.

It is true that in some parts of the site that the author does talk about his ideas on the creation of the universe, but it's hardly Creationism in the religious sense. The author has a Ph.D in Astrophysics from Harvard and is an Associate in the Harvard Astronomy Department, so I took him to be a generally credible source.

psēlaphaō · **#13** by **psēlaphaō** » Jan 25, 2014 6:27 pm

newolder wrote:see also the time independent Schroedinger equation: http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hb ... eq.html#c4

useful when time is not (of) the essence.

Thanks.

twistor59 · **#14** by **twistor59** » Jan 25, 2014 6:31 pm

psēlaphaō wrote: Mostly I just was asking for people's ideas on the "block universe" conception of time as a common interpretation of Special Relativity and whether or not that is logically consistent with conception(s) of time in QM (especially with respect to quantum randomness).

You've already looked in here presumably? :lol:

kennyc · **#15** by **kennyc** » Jan 25, 2014 6:40 pm

psēlaphaō wrote:
kennyc wrote:
ughaibu wrote:
igorfrankensteen wrote:Looks like a Creationist website to me.
Why?

Perhaps this: Roger Penrose thinks that nonlocality can help to explain consciousness.

It is true that in some parts of the site that the author does talk about his ideas on the creation of the universe, but it's hardly Creationism in the religious sense. The author has a Ph.D in Astrophysics from Harvard and is an Associate in the Harvard Astronomy Department, so I took him to be a generally credible source.

Mostly a joke. I didn't see a lot there that would make me think it's a creationist site, but Penrose certainly has theist leanings in his beliefs about consciousness. He's far from a credible source when it comes to consciousness and neuroscience. He's an idiot in that respect and is taking advantage of those like you who fall the appeal to authority even though he has no authority in the field.

psēlaphaō · **#16** by **psēlaphaō** » Jan 26, 2014 1:50 pm

twistor59 wrote:
psēlaphaō wrote: Mostly I just was asking for people's ideas on the "block universe" conception of time as a common interpretation of Special Relativity and whether or not that is logically consistent with conception(s) of time in QM (especially with respect to quantum randomness).

You've already looked in here presumably?

Thank you for the link. That was an interesting discussion.

kennyc · **#17** by **kennyc** » Jan 26, 2014 1:52 pm

twistor59 is a clever guy. :clap:

psēlaphaō · **#18** by **psēlaphaō** » Jan 28, 2014 11:04 pm

twistor59 wrote:
psēlaphaō wrote: Mostly I just was asking for people's ideas on the "block universe" conception of time as a common interpretation of Special Relativity and whether or not that is logically consistent with conception(s) of time in QM (especially with respect to quantum randomness).

You've already looked in here presumably?

Okay, I finally had time to more diligently read through that thread - which definitely does take some time to do diligently. I don't know how you intended the :lol:

smiley, but I did very much enjoy working through the postings there. Not only was my question from the OP delved into with great detail, but it also helped me understand more with respect to the debate about the relationship between physics and philosophy (with, of course, some debaters saying there is no relationship). For me, it was an extremely helpful read. In saying that I don't want to give the impression that I followed all the detail of the arguments presented - there was definitely quite a bit that I'm sure I haven't gotten quite straight, although many of the concepts were repeated and amplified on enough that even a relative thick head like me was able to glean quite a bit.

I started making a note of postings that I wanted to go back to and ended up with over a dozen. One of the things that especially struck me, though, was this response Reeve got from Roger Penrose:

Dear Reeve [...]

You ask a deep question.

My first reaction to it was to have been a simple "yes": space-time is indeed REAL, and it exists as what people sometimes refer to as a "block universe", which is simply "out there", absolute, eternal, and in a sense timeless---like mathematics itself. It is certainly hard to make sense of relativity (first "special" and then "general") in any way other than in these Minkowskian 4-dimensional terms.

Yet, there is something odd about our conscious perceptions of the "flow" of time, and our feelings of being able to "influence" the future, in relation to this fixed block-universe picture. I suppose that my view is that there is something that is far from being understood about the "measurement process" part of quantum mechanics, the seeming indeterminacy that results from this (despite Schrödinger's equation being completely deterministic), my belief that present-day quantum theory is not the last word specially in relation to gravity and Einstein's general relativity and the quantum structure of space-time, the issue of consciousness in relation to this, etc. etc. I certainly do not have a theory of all this. But you might find my opening comments in Chapter 7 of "The Emperor's New Mind" of interest, in relation to your question.

Best wishes---Roger Penrose

Thank you again for posting the link to that thread.

DavidMcC · **#19** by **DavidMcC** » Apr 13, 2014 7:07 pm

psēlaphaō wrote:...
Dear Reeve [...]

You ask a deep question.

My first reaction to it was to have been a simple "yes": space-time is indeed REAL, and it exists as what people sometimes refer to as a "block universe", which is simply "out there", absolute, eternal, and in a sense timeless---like mathematics itself. It is certainly hard to make sense of relativity (first "special" and then "general") in any way other than in these Minkowskian 4-dimensional terms.

Yet, there is something odd about our conscious perceptions of the "flow" of time, and our feelings of being able to "influence" the future, in relation to this fixed block-universe picture. I suppose that my view is that there is something that is far from being understood about the "measurement process" part of quantum mechanics, the seeming indeterminacy that results from this (despite Schrödinger's equation being completely deterministic), my belief that present-day quantum theory is not the last word specially in relation to gravity and Einstein's general relativity and the quantum structure of space-time, the issue of consciousness in relation to this, etc. etc. I certainly do not have a theory of all this. But you might find my opening comments in Chapter 7 of "The Emperor's New Mind" of interest, in relation to your question.

Best wishes---Roger Penrose

...

A universe in which there is quantum uncertainty (even if only at the microscopc scale) CANNOT be timeless! Only a fully determined universe (ie, one predetermined from the beginning) can be timeless.
PS, Schrödinger's equation itself may have a determined form, but the solution describes only probabilities, not certainties.

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