Rethinking Einstein: The end of space-time

[n2doc]

09 August 2010 by Anil Ananthaswamy

Physicists struggling to reconcile gravity with quantum mechanics have hailed a theory – inspired by pencil lead – that could make it all very simple

IT WAS a speech that changed the way we think of space and time. The year was 1908, and the German mathematician Hermann Minkowski had been trying to make sense of Albert Einstein's hot new idea - what we now know as special relativity - describing how things shrink as they move faster and time becomes distorted. "Henceforth space by itself and time by itself are doomed to fade into the mere shadows," Minkowski proclaimed, "and only a union of the two will preserve an independent reality."

And so space-time - the malleable fabric whose geometry can be changed by the gravity of stars, planets and matter - was born. It is a concept that has served us well, but if physicist Petr Horava is right, it may be no more than a mirage. Horava, who is at the University of California, Berkeley, wants to rip this fabric apart and set time and space free from one another in order to come up with a unified theory that reconciles the disparate worlds of quantum mechanics and gravity - one the most pressing challenges to modern physics.

Since Horava published his work in January 2009, it has received an astonishing amount of attention. Already, more than 250 papers have been written about it. Some researchers have started using it to explain away the twin cosmological mysteries of dark matter and dark energy. Others are finding that black holes might not behave as we thought. If Horava's idea is right, it could forever change our conception of space and time and lead us to a "theory of everything", applicable to all matter and the forces that act on it.

more

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20727721.200-rethinking-einstein-the-end-of-spacetime.html

[tridim]

1. There is new research that theorizes that two orbiting massive black holes..

mimic the orbits of the electron cloud around a nucleus.

IMlaymanO this is the key to unification, it's all about zero-point space; Black holes and particles.

Lately I'm starting to think about the Universe as nothing more that a collection of zeros and infinities, and a tiny bit of fleeting matter and energy existing in-between the two extremes.

[BadgerKid]

3. More info, please?

Bohr's model of the atom (electron orbiting nucleus in planetary-like fashion) was replaced by quantum mechanics. On the other hand, I thought it possible for two black holes to orbit one another around their common center of mass in a Newtonian sense.

Do you mean something like delocalized black holes? Maybe that could be linked to dark matter?

[tridim]

5. This explains it better than I can..

Especially starting at 3:00.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JxDxIvDD4UY&feature=related

If you're interested in this stuff you should probably watch the whole episode, it's all mind-blowing.

[frogmarch]

6. Thanks

I watched this entire Wormhole episode last night. Fascinating!

I didn't know that portions of Wormhole episodes were on YouTube. Thanks for the link!

[no limit]

2. Does that mean we can't travel backwards in time? Shucks.

[BadgerKid]

4. Interesting, thanks! n/t