On Time: Causality and the Quantum Gravity Conflict
Jan Zaanen
Published:
2024
Online ISBN:
9780198920793
Print ISBN:
9780198920779
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On Time: Causality and the Quantum Gravity Conflict
Jan Zaanen
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Jan Zaanen
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23–43
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Published:
June 2024
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Zaanen, Jan, 'Quantum physics: the tranquillity of the Euclidean time circle', On Time: Causality and the Quantum Gravity Conflict (
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Abstract
It is argued that the standard expositions of quantum weirdness, resting on small atomic physics-inspired systems, is rather pathological since nature is nearly invariably based on the collective behaviour of infinities of microscopic quantum degrees of freedom. A concise and original descriptive explanation of the way that thermal field theory works that governs this physics is presented, culminating in the Euclidean path integral formalism. This exposes in turn the deeply acausal nature of time when this microscopic reality is ‘left alone’, subjected to the principle of unitary time evolution. Upon connecting this to the macroscopic world with its causal time, probability itself emerges through the mystery of the collapse of the wavefunction. Finally, combining this with the Euclidean signature black hole geometry of Chapter 2, the Hawking temperature is very easy to understand. This may be the most challenging chapter of the book for the non-professional physics reader.
Keywords: quantum physics, thermal quantum field theory, Euclidean path integrals, unitary time evolution, the Euclidean time circle, collapse of the wavefunction, black hole Hawking temperatre
Subject
Particles and Fields Philosophy of Science Quantum Physics Relativity and Gravitation
Collection: Oxford Scholarship Online
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