Modern space-time and undecidability
Abstract
The picture of space-time that Minkowski created in 1907 has been followed by two important developments in physics not contained in the original picture: general relativity and quantum mechanics. We will argue that the use of concepts of those theories to construct space-time implies conceptual modifications in quantum mechanics. In particular one can construct a viable picture of quantum mechanics without a reduction process that has outcomes equivalent to a picture with a reduction process. One therefore has two theories that are entirely equivalent experimentally but profoundly different in the description of reality they give. This introduces a fundamental level of undecidability in physics of a kind that has not been present before. We discuss some of the implications.
- Publication:
-
arXiv e-prints
- Pub Date:
- January 2008
- DOI:
- 10.48550/arXiv.0801.2564
- arXiv:
- arXiv:0801.2564
- Bibcode:
- 2008arXiv0801.2564G
- Keywords:
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- General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology;
- High Energy Physics - Theory;
- Quantum Physics
- E-Print:
- 8 pages, no figures, Revtex, contribution to the volume "Minkowski spacetime: a hundred years later", edited by Vesselin Petkov