The End of Time: The Next Revolution in Physics

CHAPTER 21 The Many-Instants Interpretation

Many Histories in One Universe

Bell’s ‘Many-Worlds’ Interpretation

The Many-Instants Interpretation

CHAPTER 22 The Emergence of Time and its Arrow

Causality in Quantum Cosmology

Soccer in the Matterhorn

Timeless Descriptions of Dynamics

A Quantum Origin of the Universe?

Vision of a Timeless Universe

A Weil-Ordered Cosmos?

EPILOGUE Life Without Time

Notes

Further Reading

Bibliography

Index

LIST OF DISPLAY ITEMS

BOXES

1 The Great Revolutions in Physics

2 The Two Big Mysteries

3 Possible Platonias

4 Centre of Mass

5 The Galilean Relativity Principle

6 The Equation of Time

7 Tait’s Inertial Clock

8 Intrinsic Difference and Best Matching

9 Relativity in One Diagram and 211 Words

10 The Impossible Becomes Possible

11 The Two-Slit Experiment

12 Entangled States

13 How Creation Works

14 The Semiclassical Approach

15 Static Wave Packets

ILLUSTRATION

The Ariel in a Snowstorm

FIGURES

1 Absolute Space and Time

2 Motion as an Illusion

3 Triangle Land

4 Triangle Land with Frontiers

5 Platonia

6 Platonia with Mist Distribution

7 Triangle Land with Similar Triangles

8 Shape Space

9 Three-Body History in Shape Space

10 Another History in Shape Space

11 Centre of Mass

12 Effect of Galilean Relativity

13 ‘Spaghetti Diagrams’ in Absolute Space

14 Nine Histories in Shape Space

15 A Spiral Galaxy

16 Saturn and its Rings

17 Potential Energy

18 Galileo’s Diagram of Parabolic Motion

19 Coordinates in Tait’s Problem

20 A Solution of Tait’s Problem

21 Trial Placing of Two Triangles

22 Illustration of Interference Fringes

23 Magnetic Lines of Force

24 The Pond Argument

25 Einstein’s Definition of Simultaneity

26 Mutual Contraction of Rods

27 Space-Time Diagram

28 Space-Time with Light Cones

29 Three Kinds of Space-Time

30 Three-Spaces in Space-Time

31 Space-Time as a Tapestry

32 Distribution of Hits Behind One Slit

33 Expected Distribution for Two Slits

34 Actual Distribution

35 Behaviour of Wave Function

36 Wave Function of Momentum State

37 Superposition of Waves

38 Superposition of ‘Spiky’ Waves

39 Two-Dimensional Configuration Space

40 Configuration Space with Probability Density

41 Collapse of Wave Function

42 Entangled States

43 Measurement Based on an Entangled State

44 Two Nearly Sinusoidal Wave Patterns

45 A Regular Wave Pattern

46 Explanation of Fermat’s Principle

47 Effect of Wave Interference

48 Wave Patterns with Spikes

49 A Moving Wave Packet

50 Creation of an Alpha-Particle Track

51 Multiple Tracks of Elementary Particles

52 Division of Platonia

53 Schematic Representation of Platonia

54 Chronology of the Universe

55 From Big Bang to Big Crunch

THE STORY IN A NUTSHELL

Two views of the world clashed at the dawn of thought. In the great debate between the earliest Greek philosophers, Heraclitus argued for perpetual change, but Parmenides maintained there was neither time nor motion. Over the ages, few thinkers have taken Parmenides seriously, but I shall argue that Heraclitan flux, depicted nowhere more dramatically than in Turner’s painting below, may well be nothing but a well-founded illusion. I shall take you to a prospect of the end of time. In fact, you see it in Turner’s painting, which is static and has not changed since he painted it. It is an illusion of flux. Modern physics is beginning to suggest that all the motions of the whole universe are a similar illusion – that in this respect Nature is an even more consummate artist than Turner. This is the story of my book.

Snow Storm – Steamboat off a Harbour’s Mouth Making Signals in Shallow Water, and Going by the Lead. The Author was in this Storm on the Night the Ariel left Harwich (1842). The 67-year-old Turner claimed that he had made the sailors bind him to the Ariel’s mast so that he should be forced to experience the full fury of the storm.

PREFACE

We must philosophize about these things differently.

Johannes Kepler

On a beautiful October afternoon in 1963 I travelled to the Bavarian Alps with a student friend, Jürgen. We planned to spend the night in a hut and climb to the peak of the Watzmann at dawn next day. On the train, I read an article about Paul Dirac’s attempt to unify Einstein’s general theory of relativity with quantum theory. A single sentence in it was to transform my life: ‘This result has led me to doubt how fundamental the four-dimensional requirement in physics is.’ In other words, Dirac was doubting that most wonderful creation of twentieth-century physics: the fusion of space and time into space-time.