Is Space-Time Really Doomed?
Are those physicists claiming space-time is not the fundamental reality we think it is right?
When some of our most fundamental concepts of the world we call “real” turn out to be possibly very wrong, do we greet that with elation or despair? I was fascinated by a very in-depth investigation of some of the new concepts in theoretical physics published in Quanta Magazine. The teaser article is called “Why space-time is doomed.” It leads to an in-depth piece called “The unraveling of space-time.”
The belief in the irreducible reality of space-time is about as fundamental a concept provided to us by science as there can be. And science is, without too much disagreement, our most reliable source of truth and knowledge. The Big Bang 13.8 billion years ago, initiated likely by a nearly inexpressible inflation, resulted in the emergence of both space and time. Until about 110 years ago, we considered those two separate. Then Einstein appeared and said, no, they are really one and same. We don’t live in three dimensions of space, and one dimension of time, we live in a four dimensional highly flexible fabric that is both space and time at the same time.
The Quanta teaser article starts with this:
“The patent clerk, with his theory of relativity, united space and time into a single, malleable substance — space-time. In doing…
