The New Physics: The Ubiquitous Asymmetry Physics and the Mind 20th century science, in particular Relativity

and Quantum theories, presents us with a world that is hardly the one we intuitively know. The reason is simple: Quantum and Relativity theories deal with the problems of the immensely large or the immensely small. ur brains were built to solve a different class of problems. They were built to deal with midsi!e, colored ob"ects that move slowly in a three#dimensional space over a span of less than a century. The vast ma"ority of theories of mind still assume that the world is a $ewtonian world of ob"ects, of continuous time, of absolute reality and of force#mediated causality. %hat that means is very simple: most theories of mind are based on a &hysics that has been proven wrong. $ewton's &hysics does work in many cases, but today we know that it does not work in other cases. %e don't know whether mind belongs to the set of cases for which $ewton's &hysics is a valid appro(imation of reality, or whether mind belongs to the set of cases for which $ewton's &hysics yields wrong predictions. )ny theory of mind that is based on $ewton's &hysics is a gamble. *or e(ample, psychologists often like to separate the senses and feelings based on the intuitive fact that the senses gives us a photograph of the world, whereas pleasure and pain are the outcome of an interpretation of the world. %hen + see an ob"ect, + am transferring a piece of reality as it is inside my mind. %hen + feel pleasure, + am interpreting something and generating a feeling. This separation makes sense only if one assumes that ob"ects do e(ist. ,nfortunately, modern &hysics has changed our perception of reality. %hat e(ists is a chaos of elementary particles, that our eyes -interpret- as ob"ect. ) chair is no more real than a feeling of pain. They are both created by my mind. )ctually, what e(ists is truly waves of probabilities, that somehow our brain reduces to ob"ects. .odern &hysics is not necessarily right /although $ewton is necessarily wrong on several issues, otherwise 0iroshima would still be standing1. 2ut many theories of mind rely on a &hysics that, de facto, is either $ewton's or is a &hysics that has not been invented yet. The Classical World: Utopia 3ince we started least one natural least, complete1, the universe that with the assumption that our &hysics is inade4uate to e(plain at phenomenon, consciousness, and therefore cannot be -right- /or, at it is worth taking a 4uick look at what &hysics has to say about our consciousness inhabits.

ur view of the world we live in has undergone a dramatic change over the course of this century. Quantum Theory and Relativity Theory have changed the very essence of &hysics, painting in front of us a completely different picture of how things happen and why they happen. 5et6s first recapitulate the key concepts of classical &hysics. 7alileo laid them down in the 3i(teenth century. *irst of all, a body in free motion does not need any force to continue moving. 3econd, if a force is applied, then what will change is the acceleration, not the velocity /velocity will change as a conse4uence of acceleration changing1. Third, all bodies fall with the same acceleration. ) century later, $ewton e(pressed these findings in the elegant form of differential calculus and immersed them in the elegant setting of 8uclid's geometry. Three fundamental laws e(plain all of nature /at least, all that was known of nature at the time1. The first one states that the acceleration of a body due to a force is inversely proportional to the body6s -inertial- mass. The second one states that the gravitational attraction that a body is sub"ect to is proportional to its -gravitational- mass. The third one indirectly states the conservation of energy: to every action there is always an e4ual reaction. They are mostly rehashing of 7alileo6s ideas, but they state the e(act mathematical relationships and assign numerical values to constants. They lent themselves to formal calculations because they were based on calculus and on geometry, both formal systems that allowed for e(act deduction. 2y applying $ewton6s laws, one can derive the dynamic e4uation that mathematically describes the motion of a system: given the position and velocity at one time, the e4uations can determine the position and velocity at any later time. $ewton6s world was a deterministic machine, whose state at any time was a direct conse4uence of its state at a previous time. Two

conservation laws were particularly effective in constraining the motion of the conservation of momentum /momentum being velocity times mass1 conservation of energy. $o physical event can alter the overall value of, energy: energy can change form, but ultimately it will always be there in amount.

systems: and the say, the the same

+n 9:;; the +rish mathematician %illiam 0amilton, building on the 9<:: work of the +talian mathematician 5uigi 5agrange /the tra"ectory of an ob"ect can be derived by finding the path which minimi!es the -action-, such action being basically the difference between the kinetic energy and the potential energy1, reali!ed something that $ewton had only implied: that velocity, as well as position, determines the state of a system. 0e also reali!ed that the key 4uantity is the overall energy of the system. 2y combining these intuitions, 0amilton redefined $ewton6s dynamic e4uation with two e4uations that derived from "ust one 4uantity /the 0amiltonian function, a measure of the total energy of the system1, that replaced acceleration /a second#order derivative1 with the first#order derivative of velocity, and that were symmetrical /once velocity was replaced by momentum1. The bottom line was that position and velocity played the same role and therefore the state of the system could be viewed as described by si( coordinates, the three coordinates of position plus the three coordinates of momentum. )t every point in time one could compute the set of si( coordinates and the se4uence of such sets would be the history of the system in the world. ne could then visuali!e the evolution of the system in a si(# dimensional space, the -phase- space. +n the 9=th century two phenomena posed increasing problems for the $ewtonian picture: gases and electromagnetism. 7ases had been studied as collections of particles, but, a gas being made of many minuscule particles in very fast motion and in continuous interaction, this model soon revealed to be a gross appro(imation. The classical approach was 4uickly abandoned in favor of a stochastic approach, whereby what matters is the average behavior of a particle and all 4uantities that matter /from temperature to heat1 are statistical 4uantities. +n the meantime, evidence was accumulating that electric bodies radiated invisible waves of energy through space, thereby creating electromagnetic fields that could interact with each other, and that light itself was but a particular case of an electromagnetic field. +n the 9:>0s the 2ritish physicist ?ames .a(well e(pressed the properties of electromagnetic fields in a set of e4uations. These e4uations resemble the 0amiltonian e4uations in that they deal with first#order derivatives of the electric and magnetic intensities. 7iven the distribution of electric and magnetic charges at a time, .a(well6s e4uations can determine the distribution at any later time. The difference is that electric and magnetic intensities refer to waves, whereas position and momentum refer to particles. The number of coordinates needed to determine a wave is infinite, not si(... )s a by#product of his e4uations, .a(well also discovered that light is an electromagnetic wave. 2y then, it was already clear that 3cience was faced with a dilemma, one which was bound to become the theme of the rest of the century: there are electromagnetic forces that hold together particles in ob"ects and there are gravitational forces that hold together ob"ects in the universe, and these two forces are both inverse s4uare forces /the intensity of the force is inversely proportional to the s4uare of the distance1, but the two 4uantities they act upon /electric charge and mass1 behave in a completely different way, thereby leading to two completely different descriptions of the universe. )nother catch hidden in all of these e4uations was that the beautiful and imposing architecture of &hysics could not distinguish the past from the future, something that is obvious to all of us. )ll of &hysics' e4uations were symmetrical in time. There is nothing in $ewton's laws, in 0amilton's laws, in .a(well's laws or even in 8instein's laws that can discriminate past from future. &hysics was reversible in time, something that goes against our perception of the absolute and /alas1 irrevocable flow of time. The Removal of Consciousness +n the process, something else had also happened, something of momentous importance, even though its conse4uences would not be appreciated for a few centuries. Rene@ Aescartes had introduced the -e(perimental method-: science has to be based on e(periments and proofs. Aescartes started out by defining the domain of science. 0e distinguished between matter and mind, and decided that science had to occupy itself with matter. Therefore the schism was born that would influence the development of

human knowledge for the ne(t three centuries: science is the study of nature, and our consciousness does not belong to nature. 7alileo improved Aescartes' method by fostering the mathematical study of nature. $ewton built on 7alileo's foundations. &hysics, in other words, had been forced to renounce consciousness and developed a sophisticated system of knowledge construction and verification that did not care about, and therefore did not apply to, consciousness. 3cientists spoke of -nature- as if it included only inanimate, unconscious ob"ects. $o wonder that they ended up building a science that e(plains all known inanimate, unconscious phenomena, but not consciousness. The )ustrian physicist 8rwin 3chroedinger, one of the founders of Quantum &hysics, identified two fundamental tenets of classical science: ob"ect and sub"ect can be separated /i.e., the sub"ect can look at the ob"ect as if it were a completely disconnected entity1B and the sub"ect is capable of knowing the ob"ect /i.e., the sub"ect can look at the ob"ect in a way that creates a connection, one leading to knowledge1. There is a subtle inconsistency in these two tenets: one denies any connection between sub"ect and ob"ect, while the other one states an obvious connection between them. Entropy: The Curse of Irreversibility The single biggest change in scientific thinking may have nothing to do with Relativity and Quantum theories: it may well be the discovery that some processes are not symmetric in time. 2efore the discovery of the second law of Thermodynamics, all laws were symmetric in time, and change could always be bi#directional. )ny formula had an e4ual sign that meant one can switch the two sides at will. %e could always replay the history of the universe backwards. 8ntropy changed all that. 8ntropy was -discovered- around 9:C0 by the 7erman physicist Rudolf Dlausius in the process of revising the laws proposed by the *rench engineer 3adi Darnot, that would become the foundations of Thermodynamics. The first law of Thermodynamics is basically the law of conservation of energy: energy can never be created or destroyed, it can only be transformed. The second law states that any transformation has an energetic cost: this -cost- of transforming energy Dlausius called -entropy/which is numerically obtained by dividing heat by temperature1. $atural processes generate entropy. 8ntropy e(plains why heat flows spontaneously from hot to cold bodies, but the opposite never occurs: -useful- energy can be lost in entropy, not viceversa. There can never be an isolated process that results in a transfer of energy from a cold body to a hotter body: it is "ust a feature of our universe. The first law talks about the 4uantity of energy, while the second law talks about the 4uality of such energy. 8nergy is always conserved, but something happens to it that causes it to -deteriorate-. 8ntropy measures the amount of energy that has deteriorated /is not available anymore for further work1. Dlausius summari!ed the situation like this: the energy of the universe is constant, the entropy of the universe is increasing. +n the 9:<0s, the 7erman physicist 5udwig von 2olt!mann tried to deduce entropy from the motion of gas particles, i.e. from dynamic laws that are reversible in nature. 2asically, 2olt!mann tried to prove that entropy /and therefore irreversibility1 is an illusion, that matter at microscopic level is fundamentally reversible. Donvinced that bodies are made of a large number of elementary particles, 2olt!mann used statistics and probability theory to summari!e their behavior, since it would be impossible to describe each particle6s motion and their innumerable interactions. 0e noticed that many different configurations /microstates1 of those particles could lead to the same e(ternal appearance /macrostate1 of the system as a whole. 2olt!mann ended up with a statistical definition of entropy to characteri!e the fact that many different microscopic states of a system result in the same macroscopic state: the entropy of a macrostate is the logarithm of the number of its microstates. +t is not very intuitive how this definition of entropy relates to the original one, but it does. 2olt!mann6s definition emphasi!ed that entropy turns out to be also a measure of -disorder- in a system: an ordered system has fewer microstates corresponding to a given macrostate. The second law of Thermodynamics is an ine4uality: it states that entropy can never decrease. +ndirectly, this law states that transformation processes cannot be run backward, cannot be -undone-. Eoung people can age, but old people cannot re"uvenate.

2uildings do not improve over the years: they decay. 3crambled eggs cannot be unscrambled and dissolved sugar cubes cannot be recomposed. The universe must evolve in the direction of higher and higher entropy. 3ome things are irreversible. $ewton6s e4uations are symmetric in time, which means that theoretically the same process can run backwards. +t is the second law of Thermodynamics makes it impossible to go back in time, that introduces an -arrow- of time. The universe as a whole is proceeding towards its unavoidable fate: the -heat death-, i.e. the state of ma(imum entropy, in which no heat flow is possible, which means that temperature is constant everywhere, which means that there is no energy available to produce more heat, which means that all energy in the universe is in the form of heat. /)n escape from the heat death would be if the energy in the universe were infinite1. 3cientists were /and still are1 pu!!led by the fact that irreversibility /the law of entropy1 had been deduced from reversibility /basically, $ewton's laws1. .echanical phenomena tend to be reversible in time, whereas thermodynamic phenomena tend to be irreversible in time. 3ince a thermodynamic phenomenon is made of many mechanical phenomena, the parado( is how can an irreversible process arise from many reversible processesF +t is weird that irreversibility should arise from the behavior of molecules which, if taken individually, obey physical laws that are reversible. %e can keep track of the motion of each single particle in a gas, and then undo it. 2ut we cannot undo the macroscopic conse4uence of the motion of thousands of such particles in a gas. +f one filmed the behavior of each particle of a gas as the gas moves from non# e4uilibrium to e4uilibrium, and then played back the film backwards, the film would be perfectly consistent with the laws of .echanics. +n practice, though, systems never spontaneously move from e4uilibrium to non#e4uilibrium: the film is perfectly feasible, but in practice it is never made. The only reason one could find was probabilistic, not mechanical: the probability of low#entropy macrostates is smaller, by definition, than the probability of high# entropy macrostates, so the universe tends to proceed towards higher entropy. Thus the second law seems to e(press the tendency of systems to transition from less probable states /states that can be reali!ed by few microstates1 to more probable states /states that can be reali!ed by many microstates1. 2asically, there are more ways to be disorderly than to be orderly. )nd one can rephrase the same idea in terms of e4uilibrium: since e4uilibrium states are states that correspond to the ma(imum number of microstates, it is unlikely that a system moves to a state of non#e4uilibrium, likely that it moves to a state of e4uilibrium. The trick is that 2olt!mann assumed that a gas /a discrete set of interacting molecules1 can be considered as a continuum of points and, on top of that, that the particles can be considered independent of each other: if these arbitrary assumptions are dropped, no rigorous proof for the irreversibility of natural processes e(ists. The *rench mathematician ?ules 0enri &oincare', for e(ample, proved "ust about the opposite: that every closed system must eventually revert in time to its initial state /the -recurrence theorem-1. Thus everything that can happen -will- happen, and will happen infinite times. &oincare' proved eternal recurrence where Thermodynamics had "ust proved eternal doom. 8ntropy is a measure of disorder, and information is found in disorder /the more microstates the more information, ergo the more disorder the more information1, so ultimately entropy is also a measure of information. 5ater, several scientists interpreted entropy as a measure of ignorance about the microscopic state of a system, for e(ample as a measure of the amount of information needed to specify it. .urray 7ell#mann summari!ed these arguments when he gave his e(planation for the drift of the universe towards disorder. The reason that nature prefers disorder over order is that there are many more states of disorder than of order, therefore it is more probable that the system ends up in a state of disorder. +n other words, the probability of disorder is much higher than the probability of spontaneous order, and that's why disorder happens more often than disorder. +t took the 2elgian /but Russian#born1 physicist and $obel#pri!e winner +lya &rigogine, in the 9=<0s, to provide a more credible e(planation for the origin of irreversibility. 0e observed some inherent time asymmetry in chaotic processes at the

microscopic level, which would cause entropy at the macroscopic level. 0e reached the intriguing conclusion that irreversibility originates from randomness which is inherent in nature. 84uilibrium states are also states of minimum information /a few parameters are enough to identify the state, e.g. one temperature value for the whole gas at a uniform temperature1. +nformation is negative entropy and this e4uivalence would play a key role in applying entropy beyond &hysics. $ote that 2olt!mann6s reformulation of the second law was probabilistic: it e(plained the entropy of the system as a property about a population of particles, not "ust one particle. The second law does not claim that every single particle is sub"ect to it, but that closed systems /made of many particles1 are sub"ect to it. )n individual particle may well be violating the second law for a few microseconds, but the millions of particles that make up a system will obey it /"ust like one person might win at the roulette once, but that episode does not change the statistical law that people lose money at the roulette1. +n 2002 )ustralian researchers, in fact, showed that microscopic systems may spontaneously become more orderly for short periods of time. An Accelerated World 3cience has been long obsessed with acceleration. 7alileo and $ewton went down into history for managing to e(press that simple concept of acceleration. )fter them &hysics assumed that an ob"ect is defined by its position, its velocity /i.e., the rate at which its position changes1 and its acceleration /i.e., the rate at which its velocity changes1. The 4uestion is: why stop thereF %hy don't we need the -rate an ob"ect changes its acceleration- and so forthF &osition is a space coordinate. Gelocity is the first derivative with respect to time of a space coordinate. )cceleration is the second derivative with respect to time of a space coordinate. %hy do we only need two orders of derivative to identify an ob"ect, and not three or four or twenty#oneF 2ecause the main force we have to deal with is gravity, and it only causes acceleration. %e don't know any force that causes a change in acceleration, therefore we are not interested in higher orders of derivatives. To be precise, forces are defined as things that cause acceleration, and only acceleration /as in $ewton's famous e4uation -*Hma-1. %e don't even have a word for things that would cause a third derivative with respect to time of a space coordinate. )s a matter of fact, $ewton e(plained acceleration by introducing gravity. +n a sense $ewton found more than "ust a law of &hysics, he e(plained a millenary obsession: the reason mankind had been so interested in acceleration is that there is a force called gravity that drives the whole world. +f gravity did not e(ist, we would probably never have bothered to study acceleration. Dar manufacturers would "ust tell customers how long it takes for their car to reach such and such a speed. )cceleration would not even have a name. Relativity: The Primacy of i!ht The 3pecial Theory of Relativity was born /in 9=0C1 out of )lbert 8instein6s belief that the laws of nature must be uniform, whether they describe the motion of bodies or the motion of electrons. Therefore, $ewton6s e4uations for the dynamics of bodies and .a(well6s e4uations for the dynamics of electromagnetic waves had to be unified in one set of e4uations. +n addition, they must be the same in all frames of reference that are -inertial-, i.e. whose relative speed is constant. 7alileo had shown this to be true for $ewton's mechanics, and 8instein wanted it to be true for .a(well's electromagnetism as well. +n order to do that, one must modify $ewton6s e4uations, as the Autch physicist 0endrik 5orent! had already pointed out in 9:=2. The implications of this unification are momentous. Relativity conceives all motions as -relative- to something. $ewton's absolute motion, as the .oravian physicist 8rnst .ach had pointed out over and over, is an o(ymoron. .otion is always measured relative to something. 2est case, one can single out a privileged frame of reference by using the stars as a meta#frame of reference. 2ut even this privileged frame of reference /the -inertial- one1 is still measured relative to something, i.e. to the stars. There is no frame of reference that is at rest, there is no -absolute- frame of reference. %hile this is what gave Relativity its name, much more -relativity- was hidden in the theory. +n Relativity, space and time are simply different dimensions of the same space#time

continuum /as stated in 9=0: by the Russian mathematician 0ermann .inkowski1. 8instein had shown that the length of an ob"ect and the duration of an event are relative to the observer. This is e4uivalent to calculating a tra"ectory in a four# dimensional spacetime that is absolute. The spacetime is the same for all reference frames and what changes is the component of time and space that is visible from your perspective. )ll 4uantities are redefined in space#time and must have four dimensions. *or e(ample, energy is no longer a simple /mono#dimensional1 value, and momentum is no longer a three#dimensional 4uantity: energy and momentum are one space#time 4uantity which has four dimensions. %hich part of this 4uantity is energy and which part is momentum depends on the observer: different observers see different things depending on their state of motion, because, based on their state of motion, a four#dimensional 4uantity gets divided in different ways into an energy component and a momentum component. )ll 4uantities are decomposed into a time component and a space component, but how that occurs depends on the observer6s state of motion. This phenomenon is similar to looking at a building from one perspective or another: what we perceive as depth, width or height, depends on where we are looking from. )n observer situated somewhere else will have a different perspective and measure different depth, width and height. The same idea holds in space#time, e(cept that now time is also one of the 4uantities that change with -perspective- and the motion of the observer /rather than her position1 determines what the -perspective- is. This accounts for bi!arre distortions of space and time: as speed increases, lengths contract and time slows down /the first to propose that lengths must contract was, in 9::=, the +rish physicist 7eorge *it!gerald, but he was thinking of a physical contraction of the ob"ect, and 5orent! endorsed it because it gave .a(well's e4uations a particularly elegant form, whether the observer was at rest or in motion1. This phenomenon is negligible at slow speeds, but becomes very visible at speeds close to the speed of light. )n observer who travels away from a clock#tower at the speed of light, would always observe the same time, as if the clock's hands never moved and time was still. +f the observer traveled at a speed slightly less than the speed of light, the observe would see the hands of the clock moving very slowly over the years as the light would take a long time to travel that distance. n the other hand an observer who travels very slowly away from the same clock#tower /all of us on human#made vehicles1, would observe the clock's hands moving. Therefore time depends on the speed of the observer relative to the clock /or viceversa1. ) moment of time is slower at higher speed. Time intervals are dilated by higher speeds. ) further implication is that -now- becomes a meaningless concept: one observer's -now- is not another observer's -now-. Two events may be simultaneous for one observer, while they may occur at different times for another observer: again, their perspective in space#time determines what they see. The traditional law of causality is an illusion. Two events that follow each other from an observer's point of view may be simultaneous from the point of view of another observer who is moving at a different speed. The present is a concept that depends on the observer. 8ach observer has a different set of contemporary events that constitute its present. 8ven the very concept of the flow of time is 4uestionable. There appears to be a fi(ed space#time, and the past determines the future. )ctually, there seems to be no difference between past and future: again, it is "ust a matter of perspective. Time and space complement each other: as one dilates, the other one contracts. The traditional law of causality had ceased to e(ist, but a new sort of causality was introduced because any warping of space corresponded to a warping of time. .ass and energy are not e(empted from -relativity-. The mass and the energy of an ob"ect increase as the ob"ect speeds up. This principle violates the traditional principle of conservation, which held that nothing can be destroyed or created, but 8instein proved that mass and energy can transform into each other according to his famous formula /a particle at rest has an energy e4ual to its mass times the speed of light s4uared1, and a very tiny piece of matter can release huge amounts of energy. 3cientists were already familiar with a phenomenon in which mass seemed to disappear and correspondingly energy seemed to appear: radioactivity, discovered in 9:=>. 2ut 8instein's conclusion that all matter is energy was far more reaching. 5ight has a privileged status in Relativity Theory. The reason is that the speed of

light is always the same, no matter what. +f one runs at the same speed of a train, one sees the train as standing still. n the contrary, if one could run at the speed of light, one would still see light moving at the speed of light. .ost of Relativity's bi!arre properties are actually conse4uences of this postulate. 8instein had to adopt the 5orent! transformations of coordinates, which leave the speed of light constant in all frames of reference, regardless of the speed it is moving at, but in order to achieve this result must postulate that moving bodies contract and moving clocks slow down by an amount that depends on their speed. +f all this sounds unrealistic, remember that according to traditional &hysics the bomb dropped on 0iroshima should have simply bounced, whereas according to 8instein6s Relativity it had to e(plode and generate a lot of energy. That bomb remains the most remarkable proof of 8instein6s Relativity. $othing in Quantum Theory can match this kind of proof. ife "n A World ine is finite and one of Relativity6s fundamental principles is that faster than light. )s a conse4uence, an ob"ect located in a specific time will never be able to reach space#time areas of the re4uire traveling faster than the light. The speed of light nothing can travel specific point at a universe that would

The -light cone- of a space#time point is the set of all points that can be reached by all possible light rays passing through that point. 2ecause the speed of light is finite, that four#dimensional region has the shape of a cone /if the a(is for time is perpendicular to the a(es for the three spatial dimensions1. The light cone represents the potential future of the point: these are all the points that can be reached in the future traveling at the speed of light or slower. 2y pro"ecting the cone backwards, one gets the light cone for the past. The actual past of the point is contained in the past light cone and the actual future of the point is contained in the future light cone. %hat is outside the two cones is unreachable to that point. )nd, viceversa, no event located outside the light cone can influence the future of that point. The -event hori!on- of an observer is a space#time surface that divides space#time into regions which can communicate with the observer and regions which cannot. The -world line- is the spatiotemporal path that an ob"ect is actually traveling through space#time. That line is always contained inside the light cone. 2esides the traditional 4uantity of time, Relativity Theory introduces another type of time. -&roper- time is the space#time distance between two points on a world line, because that distance turns out to be the time e(perienced by an observer traveling along that world line. Relativity erased the concept of an absolute Time, but in doing so it established an even stronger type of determinism. +t feels like our lives are rigidly determined and our task in this universe is simply to cruise on our world line. There is no provision in Relativity for free will. #eneral Relativity: #ravity Tal$s $ewton e(plained how gravity works, but not what it is. 8instein6s Relativity Theory is ultimately about the nature of gravitation, which is the force holding together the universe. Relativity e(plains gravitation in terms of curved space#time, i.e. in terms of geometry. The fundamental principle of this theory /the -principle of e4uivalence-1 is actually 4uite simple: any referential frame in free fall is e4uivalent to an inertial reference frame. That is because if you are in a free fall, you cannot perceive your own weight, i.e. gravity /gravity is canceled in a frame of reference which is free falling, "ust like the speed of an ob"ect is canceled in a frame of reference which is moving at the same speed1. The laws of 3pecial Relativity still apply. 8instein's principle of e4uivalence simply e(presses the fact that gravitation and acceleration are e4uivalent. +f you can't see what is going on, and all you can measure is the =.: mIsec2 acceleration of an ob"ect that you let fall, you can't decide whether you are standing still, and sub"ect to 8arth6s gravity, or you are accelerating in empty space. )ll you observe is an acceleration of =.:. +f you are still, that's the acceleration you e(pect for any falling ob"ect. +f you are in a rocket that is accelerating upwards at =.:, that's the acceleration you e(pect for any falling ob"ect. ,nless you can see, you cannot know which one it is. The effect

is the same. Therefore, 8instein concluded, you can treat them as one: gravity and acceleration are e4uivalent. 3ince gravitation is natural motion, 8instein6s idea was to regard free falls as natural motions, i.e. as straight lines in spacetime. The only way to achieve this was to assume that the effect of a gravitational field is to produce a curvature of space#time: the straight line becomes a -geodesic-, the shortest route between two points on a warped surface /if the surface is flat, then the geodesic is a straight line1. 2odies not sub"ect to forces other than a gravitational field move along geodesics of space#time. The curvature of space#time is measured by a -curvature tensor- originally introduced in 9:CJ by the 7erman mathematician 2ernhardt Riemann. The Riemann geometry comprises the classical 8uclidean geometry as a special case, but it is much more general. .inkowsky's four#dimensional spacetime is characteri!ed by a -metrics-. ) metrics is a J(J matri(, each row and column representing one of the dimensions. The metrics for $ewton's spacetime has !eros everywhere e(cept in the diagonal of the matri(. The diagonal has values 9,9,9 and #9. This means that &itagora's theorem still works, and time is an added dimension. The !eros in the other positions of the matri( specify that the space is flat. %hen the ones and the !eros change, their values specify a curvature for spacetime. 8uclidean geometry works only with the flat#space metrics. Riemann's geometry works with any combination of values, i.e. with any degree and type of curvature. ) specific conse4uence of Riemann's geometry is that -force- becomes an effect of the geometry of space. ) -force- is simply the manifestation of a distortion in the geometry of space. %herever there is a distortion, a moving ob"ect feels a -forceaffecting its motion. Riemann's geometry is based on the notion of a -metric /or curvature1 tensor-, that e(presses the curvature of space. n a two#dimensional surface each point is described by three numbers. +n a four#dimensional world, it takes ten numbers at each point. This is the metric tensor. 8uclid's geometry corresponds to one of the infinite possible metric tensors /the one that represents !ero curvature1. $ot only space and time are relative, but space#time is warped. %ith his 9=9C field e4uations, 8instein made the connection with the physical world: he related the curvature of space#time caused by an ob"ect to the energy and momentum of the ob"ect /precisely, the curvature tensor to the -energy#momentum tensor-1. 8instein therefore introduced two innovative ideas: the first is that we should consider space and time together /three spatial dimensions and one time dimension1, not as separateB the second is that what causes the warps in this space#time /i.e., what alters the metric from 8uclid's geometry1 is mass. ) mass does not voluntarily cause gravitational effects: a mass first deforms space#time and that warping will affect the motion of other ob"ects that will therefore be indirectly feeling the -gravitational force- of that mass. The mass also has an effect on the -time- part of space#time: clocks in stronger gravitational fields /bigger warp1 slow down compared with clocks in weaker gravitational fields /smaller warp1. 3ummari!ing: the dynamics of matter is determined by the geometry of space#time, and that geometry is in turn determined by the distribution of matter. 3pace#time acts like an intermediary device that relays the e(istence of matter to other matter. 7eneral Relativity can in fact be understood as a theory of dynamically evolving relationships /as ?ulian 2arbour did1. +ncidentally, this implies that mass#less things are also affected by gravitation. This includes light itself: a light beam is bent by a gravitational field. 5ight beams follow geodesics, which may be bent by a space#time warp. 3pecial Relativity asked the laws of nature be the same in all inertial framesB which implied that they had to be invariant with respect to the 5orent! transformations. )s a conse4uence, 8instein had to accept that clocks slow down and bodies contract. %ith 7eneral Relativity he wanted laws of nature to be the same in all frames, inertial or not /his field e4uations basically removed the need for inertial frames1. This implies that the laws of nature must be -covariant- /basically must have the same form1 with respect to a generic transformation of coordinates. That turned out to imply a further erosion of the concept of Time: it turned out that clocks slow down "ust for being near a gravitational field.

%hile apparent parado(es /such as the twins parado(1 have been widely publici!ed, Relativity Theory has been ama!ingly accurate in its predictions and so far no serious blow has been dealt to its foundations. %hile ordinary people may be reluctant to think of curved spaces and time dilatations, all these phenomena have been corroborated over and over by countless e(periments. T%ins The parado( of the twins /devised by 8instein in person1 is due to the fact that... everything is relative. +f a twin leaves the 8arth, travels to another planet with a speed close to the speed of light, and comes back to the 8arth, this twin will be younger than the one that stayed on 8arth. The reason is that clocks slow down as speed increases /time dilation1. 0owever, according to Relativity, one can also run the e(periment the other way around: from the point of view of the twin that departs the 8arth, it is the 8arth that travels away and then comes back. +n this case, the twin to travel at high speed, and therefore who is younger, is the twin who stayed on the 8arth. Thus the second twin is younger if measured from the first twin, but the first twin is younger if measured from the second twin: these measurements cannot be both true at the same time. Aepending on which reference frame you use, you get two contradictory results. 8instein solved the parado( by pointing out that the two situations are not symmetric. The twin who leaves the 8arth has to apply an acceleration to get out of the 8arthB then decelerate, turn and accelerate again to return to the 8arth. )ll of this violates the principle of Relativity: the twin that departed the 8arth has done something absolute. 8ven if one assumes that the twin does not accelerate and decelerate, the fact remains that it changes direction. +n a sense, there are three /not "ust two1 inertial frames: the twin that stays on 8arth, the twin that travels away from the 8arth, and the twin that travels towards the 8arth. Thus the elapsed time for the first twin is calculated by adding up two motions referred to the same frame /the 8arth1, whereas the elapsed time for the second twin must be calculated by adding up two motions referred to two different frames /the one moving away from the 8arth and the one moving towards the 8arth1. Thus there is an absolute difference between the first twin measuring the second twin and the second twin measuring the first twin. The twin to be younger is the one leaving the 8arth. That said, it is important to remember that this -being younger- has nothing to do with bodily aging: it is only referred to time measured by clocks. Eou can in fact dream up several -parado(es- based on the same idea of going back and forth. +magine, for e(ample, that + cut a 9 cm circular hole from a sheet of paper. $ow + move the sheet of paper far away, and move the circular piece high up in the air. Then + move the sheet of paper at very high speed towards the point where it will meet the circular piece that + am letting fall at some instant to perfectly hit the hole. *rom the point of view of the circular piece, the sheet of paper is traveling at a very high speed, therefore it is shrinking, and, in particular, the hole in the middle is shrinking: therefore the circular piece will no longer be able to go through the hole. *rom the point of view of the sheet of paper, it is the circular piece that is traveling at very high speed, and thus shrinking: therefore the circular piece will easily pass through the hole. +magine if instead of paper, you used spaceships: depending on which reference frame you use, the spaceships collide or they smoothly pass each other. This is not "ust a detail. The solution of this second parado( is similar to the first one: we have done something at the very beginning, i.e. moving the sheet of paper far away. $o matter how slowly we did that, we caused a change in its si!e relative to the circular hole /and viceversa1. Thus, when we start moving the sheet of paper in the opposite direction, we cannot use its original si!e to compute the shrinking. %hen the sheet of paper and the circular piece meet, they are again the e(act same si!e that they were at the beginning of the e(periment. Relativistic Cosmolo!y 8instein6s e4uations described more than "ust the interaction between two bodies /like $ewton6s gravitational e4uations did1: they described the very story of the universe. ne could play that film backwards or forward, and derive how the universe used to be or what it will be like. 8instein briefly toyed with the idea of a -cosmological constant-. 0e was not happy

to discover that his e4uations predicted a universe in continuous turmoil /and most likely doomed to collapse under the effect of gravitation1, so he introduced a constant in his e4uations to counterbalance gravitation /basically, a sort of -anti# gravity-1and make the universe static. %hen 8dwin 0ubble showed that the universe was e(panding, 8instein reali!ed that the turmoil was real and decided that there was no need for his cosmological constant. Aensity of mass plays a crucial role in 8instein6s e4uations: the denser the mass, the bigger the warp it causes to space#time, the stronger the gravitational effect felt by nearby matter. Thus collapsing stars are particularly relevant ob"ects in 8instein6s universe. +n 9=><, the first -pulsar- was observed: a rapidly#spinning collapsed star. 3hortly after 8instein published his gravitational field e4uation, in 9=9> the 7erman physicist Karl 3chwar!schild found a solution that determines the gravitational field for any ob"ect, given its mass and its si!e. That solution goes to infinity for a specific ratio between mass and si!e: basically, if the ob"ect is dense enough /lots of mass in a tiny si!e1, the gravitational attraction it generates is infinite. $othing, not even light, can escape this ob"ect, which was therefore named -black hole- /by ?ohn %heeler1. )nd everything that gets near it is doomed to fall into it, and be trapped in it forever. &uantum Theory: The Wave Quantum Theory was the logical conse4uence of two discoveries. +n 9=00 the 7erman physicist .a( &lanck solved the mystery of radiation emitted by heated ob"ects /that $ewton6s physics failed to e(plain1: he reali!ed that atoms can emit energy only in discrete amounts. $ature seemed to forbid e(changes of energy in between those discrete values. +n 9=9; the Aanish physicist $iels 2ohr solved another mystery, the structure of the atom: electrons turn around the nucleus and are permitted to occupy only some orbits. /or, better, the angular momentum of an electron occurs only in integer multiples of a constant, which happens to be proportional to &lanck6s constant1. )gain, $ature seemed to forbid e(istence in between orbits. The electron -"umps- from one orbit to another orbit without ever being in the space in between the two orbits /as if it stopped e(isting in the old orbit and was suddenly created again in the ne(t orbit1. +n 9=2C 7eorge ,hlenbeck and 3amuel 7oudsmit discovered that each electron -spinswith an angular momentum of one half &lanck constant. The -spin- does not vary: the electron always rotates with the same -spin-. +t would turn out that every particle has its own spin, and the spin for any kind of particle is always the same. The fundamental assumption of Quantum Theory is that any field of force manifests itself in the form of discrete particles /or -4uanta-1. *orces are manifestations of e(changes of discrete amounts of energy. *or e(ample, electromagnetic waves carry an energy which is an integer multiple of a fundamental constant, the -&lanck constant-. ) way to solve the apparent parado( of 2ohr6s electrons was discovered by the *rench physicist 5ouis Ae2roglie in 9=2; /after 8instein had made the same assumption regarding light1: if an electron is viewed as a wave spreading over many orbits, the electron does not need to -"ump- from one orbit to another. The electron -is- in all orbits at the same time, to some degree. Ae2roglie proved that the e4uation for a standing wave matched the behavior of the electron. That e4uation e(pressed a relationship between 4uantities of matter /e.g., speed1 and 4uantities of waves /e.g., wavelength1. Thus he concluded that waves and particles are dual aspects of the same phenomena: every particle behaves like a wave. ne can talk of energy and mass /4uantities previously associated only to matter1, or one can talk of fre4uency and wavelength /4uantities previously associated only to waves1. The two descriptions are e4uivalent, or, better, one complements the other. +t didn6t take long to observe -interference patterns- /typical of waves1 among streams of electrons, and therefore confirm Ae2roglie6s theory. 8instein6s Relativity had shown that energy and matter were dual aspects of the same substance. Ae2roglie showed that particles and waves were dual aspects of the same phenomenon. The character of this relationship was defined in 9=2C by %erner 0eisenberg in 7ermany and 8rwin 3chroedinger in )ustria. 2oth devised e4uations that replaced the e4uations of $ewton's physics, but both e4uations had unpleasant conse4uences: 0eisenberg's e4uations implied that the result of a physical e(periment depends on the order in which the calculations were performed, and 3chroedinger's e4uations implied that each particle could only really be considered a wave. 3chroedinger

wanted to remove the discrete "umps and restore the continuum of classical &hysics. 0is e4uation, after all, simply replaces $ewton's /or, better, 0amilton's1 e4uations and predicts the state of the system at a later time given the current stateB e(cept that his -system- is not a confined ob"ect but a wave. 0e thought of the wave as describing the location of the ob"ect /i.e., the ob"ect being spread out in space1. 0owever, e(periments showed that the ob"ect /e.g., the electron1 was a very confined ob"ect /"ust like in classical &hysics1 while 3chroedinger's e4uation described it as a wave spread out in space. +n 9=2> .a( 2orn reali!ed the implications of the wave# particle duality: the wave associated to a particle turns out to be a -wave of probabilities-, that accounts for the alternative possibilities that open up for the future of a particle. +n other words, the wave summari!es the possible values for the electron6s attributes /e.g., position, energy, spin1 and how those values may evolve over time /the s4uare of the wave6s amplitude represents the probability of finding a given value for an attribute when measuring that attribute1. +n particular,

3chroedinger6s wave is not a representation of where the ob"ect is spread out but of all the places where the ob"ect could possibly be, each to a certain degree of probability.
The state of a particle is described by this -wave function- which summari!es /and superposes1 all the alternatives and their probabilities. The wave function contains all the information there is about the particle /or, in general, about a system1. +t contains the answers to all the 4uestions that can be asked about the particle. The reason this is a -wave- of probabilities and not "ust a set of probabilities is that 3chroedinger6s e4uation that describes it is the e4uation of an electromagnetic wave. 3chroedinger's e4uation describes how this wave function evolves in time, and is therefore the 4uantum e4uivalent of 0amilton's e4uations. The 3chroedinger e4uation fi(es, deterministically, the temporal development of the state of the universe. 2ut at every point in time the wave function describes a set of possibilities, not "ust one actuality. The particle6s current state is actually to be thought of as a -superposition- of all those alternatives that are made possible by its wavelike behavior. ) particle's current state is, therefore, a number of states: one can view the particle as being in all of those states at the same time. This is a direct conse4uence of a particle not being "ust a particle but being also a wave. )s 2orn phrased it, the motion of particles follows the law of probabilities, but the probability itself follows the law of causality. +n 9=2< 2ohr stated the ultimate parado( of the wave#particle duality: everything is both particle and wave, but one must choose whether to measure one or the other aspect of nature, and then stick to it. +f you try to mi( the two, you run into contradictions. The Planc$ Constant f course, one e(planation begs for another one: introducing the &lanck constant helps e(plain phenomena that $ewton could not e(plain, but the mystery now is the &lanck constant itself: what is it, what does it representF $ewton6s physics /as well as 8instein6s physics1 assumed that the most fundamental units of the universe were the point and the instant. Quantum Theory introduces a fundamental unit that is bigger than a point and an instant, and seems to be as arbitrarily finite as $ewton6s points were infinitesimally small. ,nlike $ewton6s points and instants, that have no si!e, the &lanck constant has a si!e: a length, height and width of 90 #;;centimeters and a time interval of 90#J; seconds. 8instein had warped space and time, but Quantum Theory did worse: it turned them into grids. / ne could even argue that the very notion of measuring a distance such as -90#;; centimeters- depends on $ewton6s concept of space, and thus we don6t 4uite know what we mean when we say that &lanck6s length is -90#;; centimeters-1. Enter Uncertainty +n classical &hysics, a 4uantity /such as the position or the mass1 is both an attribute of the state of the system and an observable /a 4uantity that can be measured by an observer1. Quantum Theory makes a sharp distinction between states and observables. +f the system is in a given state, an observable can assume a range of values /so called -eigenvalues-1, each one with a given probability. The evolution over time of a system can be viewed as due /according to 0eisenberg1 to time

evolution of the observables or /according to 3chroedinger1 to time evolution of the states. )n observer can measure at the same time only observables that are compatible. +f the observables are not compatible, they stand in a relation of mutual indeterminacy: the more accurate a measurement of the one, the less accurate the measurement of the other. &osition and momentum are, for e(ample, incompatible. This is a direct conse4uence of the wave#particle dualism: only one of the two natures is -visible- at each time. ne can choose which one to observe /whether the particle, that has a position, or the wave, that has a momentum1, but cannot observe both aspects at the same time. &recisely, 0eisenberg6s famous -uncertainty principle- states that there is a limit to the precision with which we can measure, at the same time, the momentum and the position of a particle. +f one measures the momentum, then it cannot measure the position, and viceversa. This is actually a direct conse4uence of 8instein's e4uation that related the wavelength and the momentum /or the fre4uency and the energy1 of a light wave: if coordinates /wavelength1 and momentum are related, they are no longer independent 4uantities. 8instein never believed in this principle, but he was indirectly the one who discovered it. The wave function contains the answers to all the 4uestions that can be asked about a system, but not all those 4uestions can be asked simultaneously. +f they are asked simultaneously, the replies will not be precise. The degree of uncertainty is proportional to the &lanck constant. This implies that there is a limit to how small a physical system can be, because, below a 4uantity proportional to the &lanck constant and called -&lanck length-, the physical laws of Quantum Theory stop working altogether. The &lanck scale /90 L;; cm, i.e. the shortest possible length, and 90LJ; sec, i.e. the time it takes for a light beam to cross the &lanck length, i.e. the shortest possible time tick1 is the scale at which space#time is no longer a continuum but becomes a grid of events separated by the &lanck distance. %hat happens within a single cell of the grid, is beyond the comprehension of &hysics. )s the ,3) physicist ?ohn %heeler suggested in the 9=C0s, even the very notions of space and time stop making sense in this -4uantum foam-. $ote that 0eisenberg does not forbid precise measurements of -compatible observables-, for e(ample of position, charge and spin. +t only applies to -incompatible observables-, which are couples: positionImomentum, energyItime, electric fieldImagnetic field, angleIangular momentum, etc. ne cannot measure e(actly both the position and the momentum /speed1 of a particle at the same time. ) conse4uence of 0eisenberg's principle is that no particle can be completely at rest. +f a particle were at rest, then both its position and its speed would be measured e(actly /both being !ero1, a fact that would contradict 0eisenberg. 8ven if the particle has absolutely no energy, there would still be some random form of motion /the -!ero#point motion-1. 2y the same token, one cannot measure the electrical and the magnetic field simultaneously with absolute precision. The more accurate one measurement is, the less accurate the other one is. 8ven if one removed all the energy from the vacuum, there would still be some random fluctuations of the electrical andIor magnetic fields, the -4uantum vacuum fluctuations-. The uncertainty predicted by Quantum Theory /and verified by countless e(periments in countless laboratories1 has been sometimes interpreted as a conse4uence of the fact that, at the microscopic level, one cannot pretend that a measurement is -ob"ectiveat all: a measurement is an interaction between two systems, which, like all interactions, affects both. 2ut that is not 4uite where 0eisenberg6s calculations came from. They originate, as everything else, from &lanck6s constant. 'ero(Point Ener!y )s a conse4uence of 4uantum uncertainty, &lanck and 0eisenberg proved that at that scale, the vacuum of empty space is actually -full- of all sorts of subtle events. +n 9=J: the Autch physicist 0endrick Dasimir even showed how this all#pervading !ero# point energy could be measured /thus it is now known as -Dasimir force-1. This was the culmination of the eccentricities of Quantum Theory: that the vacuum was not empty.

/The first e(perimental confirmation of !ero#point energy had to wait until the 9==0s1. Thus Quantum Theory predicts that the universe e(ists on a grid of spacetime values, and that there is something within the elements of this grid, something that does not 4uite belong to the universe /or, at least, does not belong to Quantum &hysics1 but has nonetheless an energy that can interact with the universe /be measured by people living on the grid of our universe1. Mass 7alileo -discovered- inertia: bodies that are at rest tend to remain at rest, and bodies that are moving tend to continue moving at the same speed in the same direction, unless a force is applied. $ewton turned 7alileo6s inertia into a 4uantitative property of matter: mass. $ewton showed that mass was the ob"ect of forces, and the effect of forces on mass was to accelerate it. *orces and accelerations were visible entities. .ass was an invisible property of matter. $ewton6s mass was three things in one: it was resistance to acceleration, it was the ability of attracting other masses, and it was the propensity to be attracted by other masses. 8instein introduced -rest- mass, an aspect of energy, e(pressed by the e4uation 8Hmc2. 8instein also showed that things that possess -mass- cannot travel faster than the speed of light, a speed that is reserved for things that do not possess mass /such as the photon1. Quantum .echanics showed that -mass- is indeed a property of every elementary particle, but introduced another oddity: while there is an anti#particle for every particle /electrical charge can be positive or negative1, both a particle and its anti#particle have the same /positive1 mass. .ass is only positive, never negative. /+n 9=C< 2ritish physicist 0ermann 2ondi showed that the encounter between a mass and its anti#mass would result in infinite acceleration, with no need for a source of energy: the negative mass would be attracted to the positive mass, while the positive mass would be repelled by the negative mass. Thus the two masses would e(perience e4ual accelerations in the same direction, in violation of $ewton's third law, and continue to accelerate forever, the negative mass chasing the positive mass and the positive mass fleeing from the negative mass with constant acceleration1. $either Relativity nor Quantum Theory e(plained what -mass- is /where it comes from1 and what causes its odd properties. They both took it for granted that $ature is that way. +t was the odd behavior of -mass- that allowed physicists to create an elegant world. 2ut the elegance was mostly based on an abstract, arbitrary, -catch alldefinition. The World And The Mind Relativity Theory and Quantum Theory said something important about the mind. They were as much about mind as they were about matter, only in a more subtle way. Relativity Theory was not only about reality being -relative- to something. +t was /first and foremost1 about reality being beyond the reach of our senses. 8instein's underlying principle is that we don't always see the universe as it is. $ewton's underlying principle was that we see the universe as it is. $ewton's &hysics is a description of how our mind perceives the universe. There are bodies, there is absolute time, etc. 8instein's &hysics is a -guess- about what the universe really is, even if our mind cannot perceive it. 8instein's &hysics implied that there may be aspects of the universe that our mind cannot perceive, and that we can guess only by analy!ing the aspects that we can perceive. Quantum Theory was not only about reality being -4uanti!ed-. +t was also about reality being beyond the reach of our mind. The single most distressing finding of Quantum Theory is that reality as we know it only occurs when somebody observes it. The electron is in a certain place only when somebody actually looks at it, otherwise the electron is, simultaneously, in several different places. %e can analy!e this finding with either of two stances. )ccording to the first one, our mind has no limitations. +t can perfectly perceive nature as it is. +t observes only one value because that is what nature does: the multiple choices for a 4uantity's value collapse to "ust one value when that 4uantity is observed by an observer.

)ccording to the second one, our mind has limitations. The 4uantum collapse from many values to "ust one value is due to a limitation of our mind. ur mind cannot perceive nature as it is. +t can only perceive one value for each 4uantity. The electron is in many places, but our mind cannot perceive a thing being in many places at the same time, so it -collapses- the electron into only one specific place at a time. This is "ust an effect due to the limitation of our mind. %e are forced to -sample- reality because we can't handle all of it. )fter all, that's what all our senses do. They are bombarded all the time with data from the environment, and they only pick up some of those data. %e don't perceive every single detail of what is going on around us, we are forced to be selective. The mind turns out to be a sense that also has limited capacity, although the limitation is of a different kind. 8ach item of reality /a position, a speed, etc1 -has- many values. The reason we observe only one value is that our mind can't handle a universe in which 4uantities have more than one value. The conceptual revolution caused by Quantum Theory was somewhat deeper than the one caused by Relativity Theory. Reconciling $ewton and 8instein is relatively easy: $ewton's theory was not false, it was "ust a special case of 8instein's theory, the one in which the spacetime is 8uclidean. Reconciling $ewton and Quantum Theory is, on the other hand, impossible: $ewton's theory is "ust false. +t seems to work because insist to assume that such things as big ob"ects truly e(ist. ) theory of mind that does not take into account Relativity is a legitimate appro(imation, "ust like a theory of the 8arth that does not take into account Relativity is a legitimate appro(imation. 2ut no theory of mind can ignore Quantum Theory. The Po%er of Constants )t this point we can note that all the revolutionary and controversial results of these new theories arose from the values of two constants. Quantum .echanics was a direct conse4uence of &lanck's constant: were that constant !ero, there would be no uncertainty. Relativity Theory was a direct conse4uence of the speed of light being constant in all frames of reference: were the speed of light infinite, there would be no time dilatation and contraction of length. These two constants were determined, indirectly, by studying two minor phenomena that were still unsolved at the end of the century: the ether and the black body radiation. The presence of the ether could not be detected by measuring the speed of light through itB so 8instein assumed that the speed of light is always the same. The black body does not radiate light with all possible values of energy but only with some values of energy, those that are integer multiples of a certain unit of energyB so &lanck assumed that energy e(changes must only occur in discrete packets. These two universal constants alone revealed a whole new picture of our universe. Quantum Reality: Fuzzy or Incomplete? .any conflicting interpretations of Quantum Theory were offered from the beginning. $iels 2ohr claimed that only phenomena /what appears to our senses, whether an ob"ect or the measurement of an instrument1 are real, in the human sense of the word: particles that cannot be seen belong to a different kind of reality, which, circularly, cannot be perceived by humansB and the wave function is therefore not a real thing. Reality is unknowable because it is inherently indeterminate, and we humans do not live in a world of indeterminate things, we live in a world of phenomena /where -phenomena- presumably includes also houses and trees, the effect of those elementary processes1. %erner 0eisenberg, the man who discovered in 9=2C the first complete theory of the 4uantum, believed that the world -is- made of possibility waves and not particles: particles are not real, they are merely -potentialities-, something in between ideas and actualities. ur world, what we call -reality-, is a se4uence of collapses of wave of possibilities. The 4uantum world and our world are bridged by the -measurement-. Reality arises from 4uantum discontinuities /or -4uantum "umps-1: classical evolution of the 3chroedinger e4uation builds up -propensities-, then 4uantum discontinuities /the collapse of the wave function1 select one of those propensities. 8very time this happens, reality changes. Therefore reality -is- the se4uence of such 4uantum discontinuities. %hat turns the unknowable world of

particles into human#perceivable -phenomena- is the observation: the moment we observe something, we create a phenomenon. )s ?ohn %heeler put it, -no phenomenon is a real phenomenon until it is an observed phenomenon-. The universe had to wait for a conscious observer before it started e(isting for real. *urthermore, 0eisenberg interpreted this reality as -knowledge-: the 4uantum state is a mathematical description of the state of the observer's knowledge rather than a description of the ob"ective state of the physical system observed. The 2ritish physicist &aul Airac, the man who in 9=2: merged Quantum &hysics and 3pecial Relativity in Quantum *ield Theory, pointed out that Quantum &hysics is about our knowledge of a system. +t does not describe reality but our knowledge of reality. ) wave function represents our knowledge of a system before an e(periment and the reduced wave function our more precise knowledge after the measurement. The Indivisible Universe )lbert 8instein was so unhappy with the uncertainty principle that he accepted Quantum .echanics only as an incomplete description of the universe. 0e thought that Quantum .echanics had neglected some -hidden variables-. nce those hidden variables were found, we would have a complete theory without Quantum Theory6s oddities but with all of Quantum Theory6s results. Quantum Theory is a practical tool to calculate probabilities for sets of particles, but no prescription is provided for calculating 4uantities of individual particles. 8instein thought that there is an underlying reality where determinism rules and the behavior of the individual particle can be predicted. +t is "ust that Quantum .echanics is incomplete and has not found out that underlying reality yet. 8instein was particularly unhappy about the -nonlocality- of Quantum &hysics, which he thought constituted a parado(. -$onlocality- means -action at a distance-. +n Quantum &hysics one can prove that, if they were once part of the same state, two particles will be always connected: once we measure the position of the first one, we instantaneously determine the position of the other one, even if, in the meantime, it has traveled to the other end of the universe. 3ince no information can travel faster than light, it is impossible for the second particle to react instantaneously to a measurement that occurs so far from it. The only possible e(planation for this -parado(- was, to 8instein, that the second particle must have properties which are not described by Quantum .echanics. 8instein thought that Quantum &hysics provides a fu!!y picture of a sharp reality, whereas for 2ohr it provides a compete picture of a fu!!y reality. 8instein was proven wrong in 9=>J by the +rish physicist ?ohn 2ell /- n the &roblem of 0idden Gariables in Quantum .echanics-, published only two years later1, whose theorem basically ruled out -local hidden variables-, precisely the type that 8instein invoked. 2ell's conclusion is that, on the contrary, there are ob"ective, non#local connections in the universe. +n other words, two particles, once they have interacted, will keep interacting forever /their wave functions get entangled forever1. 8instein believed in the law of locality, i.e. that two ob"ects can interact only if they touch each other or if their interaction is mediated by some other ob"ectB but 2ell proved that the -wave- is enough to provide interaction. Two measurements can be related instantaneously even if they are located in regions too far apart for a light signal to travel between them. $on#locality, or inseparability, is a fact of nature. b"ects are not only affected by forces. They are also affected by what happens to other ob"ects. /.ore precisely, 2ell showed how to test whether a world of properties that are not due to observation and of separated ob"ects is possible. +n 9=<2 ?ohn Dlauser carried out an actual e(periment to perform the test, and its result proved 8instein wrong: either properties are due to observation, or ob"ects are forever connected, or both. ur world cannot possibly have both an observer#independent reality and entanglement# free ob"ects. To be fair to 8instein, 2ell assumed that induction is a valid logical method to prove theorems. )nd, as $ick 0erbert has noted, 2ell's theorem is metaphysical, not physical, and ultimately relies on the metaphysical assumption that the world behaves in a classical deterministic manner1. This shattered another belief of classical &hysics. $ewton believed that ob"ects interact through forces that somehow have to travel from one to the other. ) cannonball has to travel from the cannon to the walls before the walls e(plodeB and nothing else in the universe is affected. The sun attracts the earth into an orbit, but it doesn't have any effect on the other stars. These are -local- interactions.

8instein added that forces can only travel as fast as light. Therefore, the impact of a force o an ob"ect is delayed by the time it takes for the force to reach that ob"ect at a speed which cannot e(ceed the speed of light. -5ocality- became a distance: there is only so much in the universe that can e(ert a force on me, because only so much of the universe can send its force to me during my lifetime. +f + live :0 years, an event that occurs more than :0 light#years away from here will never cause any disturbance on my life. 2ell proved that this is not the case, because Quantum Theory prescribes the e(istence of a non#local -force-: once two waves have interacted, they are forever entangled. $ote that 0eisenberg's -knowledge interpretation- never had a problem with non# locality: obviously, a change in the observer's knowledge does change the observer's knowledge about the entire system, regardless of how -e(tended- in space the system is. *or e(ample, if + observed the two particles at the beginning, when they were in the same place, and noticed that one is black and the other one is white, and later + observe the white one, + will -know- that the other one is black even if the other one is light#years away from me. "ntolo!ical interpretation The ,3) physicist Aavid 2ohm believed in an -undivided whole- even before ?ohn 2ell's theorem. 0is idea was that the whole universe is entangled in one gigantic wave. ne of Quantum Theory's most direct conse4uences is indeterminism: one cannot know at the same time the value of both the position and the momentum of a particle. ne only knows a probability for each of the possible values, and the whole set of probabilities constitute the -wave- associated with the particle. nly when one does observe the particle, does one particular value occurB only then does the wave of probabilities -collapse- to one specific value. 2ohm6s -ontological- interpretation of Quantum Theory /-) 3uggested +nterpretation of the Quantum Theory in Terms of 0idden Gariables-, 9=C21 almost resurrected determinism at the 4uantum level. 2ohm6s bold assumption was that the 4uantum -waveis a real wave, due to a real potential. 2ohm assumed that the wave function does not represent "ust a set of probabilities: it represents an actual field. ) particle is always accompanied by such a field. This field is a real field and acts upon particles the same way a classical potential does. /2ohm resurrected an interpretation of Quantum Theory that Ae2roglie had abandoned, the theory of an ordinary wave guiding an ordinary particle1. The beauty of this assumption is that, with the introduction of this additional potential, something momentous happens to the e4uations of Quantum .echanics: position and momentum of a particle are no longer incompatible, they can be measured precisely at the same time, and 0eisenberg6s principle is defeated. The behavior of the particle in 2ohm6s theory is determined by the particle's position and momentum, by whatever force is acting on it, and by the 4uantum potential. *or 2ohm, particles do e(ist and are always accompanied by a field. )n electron is neither a particle nor a wave /field1, it is a particle plus a wave /that cannot be separated1. 2ut 2ohm's wave is not 2orn's wave: 2orn's wave is only a function of probabilities that helps compute the particle's position, whereas 2ohm's wave is a real wave that guides the particle /therefore also referred to as the -pilot#wave-1. 8verything is both a particle and a wave, and is acted upon by both a classical potential and a 4uantum potential /the -pilot wave-1. 2asically, the wave#function provides an additional potential that, once inserted in the traditional 0amiltonian of classical &hysics, yields a well#determined tra"ectory for each particle /but since the initial position cannot be known, we still can't predict the path of a particle, only notice that there e(ists a well#determined path prescribed by nature1. 2ohm had found an interpretation of Quantum Theory in terms of particles with well# defined position and momentum. %hat 2ohm had done with his assumption was, basically, to add some -hidden variables- /the 4uantum potential1 to the e4uations, precisely what 8instein had suggested to restore determinism in &hysics. /2ohm, incidentally, was dismissed e4ually by 2ohr, who did not believe in hidden variables, and by 8instein, who believed in hidden variables1. The Pilot(Wave

To e(plain the function of the 4uantum potential, 2ohm introduced the notion of -active in#formation- /-information- as in -give form-, for e(ample to a particle's movement1. ) particle is moved by whatever energy it has /for e(ample, because a force is acting on it1 but its movement is guided by the -in#formation- in the 4uantum field /in the -pilot#wave-1. +n &hysics, a potential describes a field in terms of how, at each point in space, the particle located at that point will be affected by that field. +n $ewton's physics the effect of the classical potential on a particle is proportional to the magnitude of the field. 2ohm thought that his 4uantum field, in particular, had to reflect whatever is going on in the environment, including the measuring apparatus. Therefore, the 4uantum potential depends only on the form, and not on the magnitude, of the 4uantum field. The -strength- of the 4uantum potential does not depend on the intensity of the wave but only on the form of the wave. 8ven a very weak 4uantum potential can affect the particle. 8ven a very distant event can affect the particle. The previous interpretations of Quantum Theory were trying to reconcile the traditional, classical concept of -measurement- /somebody who watches a particle through a microscope1 with a 4uantum concept of -system-. 2ohm dispensed with the classical notion of -measurement-: one cannot separate the measuring instrument from the measured 4uantity, as they interact all the time. +t is misleading to call this act -measurement-. +t is an interaction, "ust like any other interaction, and, as 0eisenberg's principle states, the conse4uence of this interaction is not a measurement at all. Implicate "rder The field that 2ohm introduced in the e4uations to fi( 0eisenberg6s indeterminism represents a -sub#4uantum- reality. 2ohm's 4uantum potential does not act within the four#dimensional geometry of spacetimeB it acts beyond it. +n a sense, it defines a common pool of information, a way to connect everything together, "ust like dancers can use the music to move together in harmony. 2ohm thought that this field must be fluctuating rapidly and what Quantum Theory observes is merely an average over time /"ust like $ewton's physics reads a value for 4uantities that are actually due to the 2rownian motion of many particles1. Quantum physics deals with mean values of an underlying reality "ust like $ewton's physics deals with mean values of thermodynamic 4uantities. )t this -sub#4uantum- level, 4uantum effects all but disappear: a particle6s position and momentum are well#determined. The mystery of the collapse of the wave function, of the discontinuity in the transition from the 4uantum world to the classical world, occurs only at the 4uantum level, whereas 2ohm believes there is a deeper level at which the apparent discontinuity of the collapse disappears. )fter all, the study of -elementary- particles has shown that even elementary particles can be destroyed and created, which means that they are not the ultimate components of the universe, that there must be an underlying reality, or, in 2ohm's terms, an underlying -flu(-. 2ohm thought that the basic problem lied in an obsolete notion of -order-. Thus, 2ohm distinguished between the -e(plicate- order /the world of isolated spacetime thing#events that our senses e(perience1 and the -implicate- order /all thing#events are part of a whole, the -holomovement-1. The e(plicate order emerges from the holomovement. The holomovement contains all instances of e(plicate order as potentialities. Dartesian order /the physics in which the Quantum and Relativity undivided wholeness of -grid- of space#time events1 is appropriate for $ewtonian universe is divided in separate ob"ects, but inade4uate for theories to reflect their idiosyncrasies and in particular the the universe that 2ohm has been focusing on.

2ohm's solution was to contrast the -e(plicate order- that we perceive and that &hysics describes /the Dartesian order of isolated space#time thing#events1 with the -implicate order-, which is an underlying, hidden layer of relationships. The e(plicate order is but a manifestation of the implicate order. 3pace and time, for e(ample, are -forms- of the e(plicate order that are derived from the implicate order.

The implicate order is similar to the order within a hologram: the implicate order of a hologram gives rise to the e(plicate order of an image, but the implicate order is not simply a one#to#one representation of the image. +n fact, each region of the hologram contains a representation of the entire image. The implicate order and the e(plicate order are fundamentally different. The main difference is that in the e(plicate order each point is separate from the others. +n the intricate order, the whole universe is -enfolded- in everything, and everything is enfolded in the whole. +n the e(plicate order -things- become /relatively1 independent. +n the implicate order, all thing#events are part of a whole, the -holomovement-. The e(plicate order emerges from the holomovement. The holomovement contains all instances of e(plicate order as potentialities. 2ohm suggested that the implicate order could be defined by the 4uantum potential, the field consisting of an infinite number of pilot waves. The overlapping of the waves generates the e(plicate order of particles and forces, and ultimately space and time. 3ince 2ohm6s 4uantum field is affected by all particles /the pilot#wave that guides all particles is affected by all particles1, nonlocality is a feature of reality: a particle can depend strongly on distant features of the environment. 2ohm's universe is one indivisible whole. 8verything in the universe is entangled in everything else, and ultimately in the whole. +t does not make sense to analy!e particles of subsets of the world as independent and separate parts. )eyond ocality 8instein's ob"ection did not die there and is still very much alive, if nothing else because, ultimately, it can be read as an ob"ection to the role that the observer plays in Quantum Theory. The ,3) physicist )lwyn 3cott resuscitated 8instein's hypothesis. 3cottargued favor of an interpretation of Quantum Theory as an appro(imation to a not discovered non#linear theory. The new theory must be non#linear because it is only way to remove 0eisenberg's uncertainty principle, which descends from linearity of 3chroedinger's e4uation. in yet the the

)gain inspired by 8instein, the )ustralian philosopher 0uw &rice thinks that backward causation /that future can influence the past1, or advanced action, is a legitimate option. &rice believes that our theories are time#asymmetric because we are conditioned by folk concepts of causality. &hysical theories are built starting with the assumption that the future cannot influence the past, and therefore it is no surprise that they prescribe that the future cannot influence the past. +f we remove our preconceptions about causality, then we can redraw Quantum &hysics. Then it turns out that 8instein was right with his hypothesis of hidden variables, and that Quantum &hysics provides an incomplete description of the universe. ) complete Quantum &hysics will not assign any critical role to the observer. +n the 9=:0s the ,3) physicist ?ohn Dramer traveled the opposite route with his -transactional interpretation- of Quantum Theory, which aims at sending back the observer to the laboratory and removing her from the formalism. Dramer builds on -absorber theory- developed in the 9=J0s by ?ohn %heeler and Richard *eynman. They described a radiation process as a -transaction- in which the emitter of the radiation and the absorber of the radiation e(change waves: the emitter sends a -retarded- wave to the absorber, and simultaneously the absorber sends an -advancedwave to the emitter. )dvanced waves are canceled and therefore cannot be detected. )n observer perceives only that a retarded wave has traveled from the emitter to the absorber. -)dvanced- waves are solutions of a wave e4uation which contain only the second time derivative. )dvanced waves have -eigenvalues- of negative energy and fre4uency, and they propagate in the negative time direction. )dvanced waves are basically the time# reversed counterparts of normal /or retarded1 waves. 2oth -advanced- and -retardedwaves are valid orthogonal solutions of the electromagnetic wave e4uation, but in conventional electrodynamics the advanced solutions are usually ignored as unnatural, because they violate the law of causality, and only -retarded- solutions are retained. %heeler and *eynman proposed that the time symmetry in the wave e4uation reflects a property of nature, that both types of waves actually occur.

+n the %heeler#*eynman absorber theory, any emission process makes advanced waves on an e4ual basis with ordinary -retarded- waves. Dramer has e(tended the idea and claims that any 4uantum event is a -handshakee(ecuted through an e(change of advanced and retarded waves. The e(change of a 4uantum of energy between a present emitter and a future absorber occurs through a %heeler#*eynman e(change of advanced and retarded waves. The emitter sends an -offerwave to the absorber /forward in time1. The absorber then returns a -confirmationwave to the emitter /backwards in time1. The transaction is then completed with an -handshake- across space#time, which leads to the transfer of energy from emitter to absorber. The transaction is e(plicitly non#local because the future is affecting the past. 8instein's parado( is solved without resorting to a knowledge#based interpretation. The *iscontinuity "f Time ne of $ewton's postulates was that -time flows e4uably-. The biggest problem with Quantum Theory is how the observed world /the world we know, made of well#defined ob"ects1 emerges from the 4uantum world /a world of mere possibilities and uncertainties, thanks to 0eisenberg6s principle1. The 0ungarian mathematician ?ohn Gon $eumann /the same one who virtually invented the computer1 distinguished between processes of the first and second kinds that occur when one is analy!ing the evolution of a system with Quantum Theory. *irst#kind processes occur in isolated systems, on which no measurements can be carried out, and they closely resemble classical, deterministic evolution of a physical system. 3econd#kind processes occur when a measurement is carried out and they are non# deterministic /or at least probabilistic1: when an observable is measured, the state of the system suddenly "umps to an unpredictable state /or -eigenstate-1 associated with the measured eigenvalue of the observable. ,nlike classical &hysics, in which the new state can be determined from the prior state of the system, Quantum Theory can only specify the probabilities of moving into any of the observable6s eigenstates. +n 4uantum lingo, a measurement causes a -collapse of the wave function-, after which the observable assumes a specific value. ) continuous process of the first kind gives rise to a discontinuous process of the second kind. +solated systems obey to the 3chroedinger e4uation, observed systems obey to 0eisenberg's 4uantum "umps. Quantum Theory therefore implies that something turns a process of the first kind into a process of the second kind when it is observed. The problem is that Quantum Theory does not prescribe or describe when and how this happens. The flow of time is mysteriously altered by measurements: a system evolves in a smooth and deterministic fashion until a measurement is performed, then it "umps more or less randomly into an eigenstate of the measured observable, from where it resumes its smooth evolution until the ne(t measurement. Time seems to behave in an awkwardly capricious way. )s 2ohr pointed out, a measurement also introduces irreversibility in nature: collapse cannot be undone. nce we measured a 4uantity, at that point in time a discontinuity is introduced in the evolution of the wave function. +f, after a while, we proceeded backwards in time, we would reach the same point from the future with a wave function which could collapse in any of the legal ways, only one of which is the one that originated the future we are coming from. +t is very unlikely that we would retrace the same past. Thus there is another -arrow of time- /besides entropy1 that e(plains why time only flows in one direction. The Measurement Problem )ccording to Quantum Theory, our universe needs both kinds of processes. Gon $eumann tried to figure out how they interact and reali!ed that the answer lies in the -measurement- of the system. Reality seems to proceed on two parallel tracks. The 3chroedinger e4uation determines /in a deterministic manner1 the evolution of the state of the system, but that state is a set of possible states each with its own probability of happening. 3o long as nobody observes the system, the 3chroedinger e4uation predicts future probabilities of the system. Then 0eisenberg's principle causes that wave function to -collapsewhenever the system is observed. The collapse causes the system to choose only one of the possible states. nce the observer has observed the system, only a part of the

wave survives and evolves according to the 3chroedinger e4uation. )t this point the 3chroedinger e4uation can calculate a new set of possible states. )nd so forth. The two views are both necessary to e(plain the evolution of the universe. They are not alternative views of the universe. ne complements the other. $ote that the observer does more than "ust observe something: the observer also decides -what- to observe. That decision has an effect on the state of the system, because it forces the system to choose among all the possible states. $ature's role is really only to choose one of those possible states, and Quantum Theory can only presume that this is done randomly. Gon $eumann pointed out that measurement of a system consists in a process of interactions between the instrument and the system, whereby the states of the instrument become dependent on the states of the system. There is a chain of interactions that leads from the system to the observer6s consciousness. *or e(ample, a part of the instrument is linked to the system, another part of the instrument is linked to the previous part, and so forth until the interaction reaches the observer6s eye, then an interaction occurs between the eye and the brain and finally the chain arrives to the observer6s consciousness. 8ventually, states of the observer6s consciousness are made dependent on states of the system, and the observer -knows- what the value of the observable is. 3omewhere along this process the collapse has occurred, otherwise the end result of the chain would be that the observer6s consciousness would e(hibit the same probabilistic behavior of the observable: if the observer reads one specific value on the instrument, it means that the wave of possibilities has collapsed /has chosen "ust that one specific value1 somewhere between the system and the observer6s consciousness. )t which pointF %hat e(actly causes the -collapse-F The instrumentF The lenseF The electrons inside the instrumentF The observer's retinaF The observer's nervous systemF The observer's consciousnessF %hat constitutes a valid observerF Aoes it have to be bigF Aoes it have to be in the brainF Aoes it have to be consciousF Aoes it have to be humanF Gon $eumann showed mathematically that Quantum Theory is indifferent: it makes no difference to the statistical predictions of Quantum Theory where e(actly this happens and what causes it. 2ut humans are curious and would like to find out. +n a sense, Gon $eumann was trying to reconcile -ob"ective being- and -sub"ective knowing-. +n classical &hysics they are one and the same, but in Quantum &hysics they are different, and it is not completely clear how sub"ective knowing relates to ob"ective being. 5ater, the 0ungarian physicist 8ugene %igner introduced another step in Gon $eumann6s thought e(periment: what if a friend is part of the chain that leads to the observationF +f a friend measures the position of a particle and then relates to me the result, for me the wave -collapses- only when he tells me the result of her e(periment. 2ut the wave has already collapsed for her when he carried out the measurement. Aid the wave collapse also for me at the same timeF +f not, do our waves collapse to the same valueF r does each of us live in an independent universeF Gon $eumann6s interpretation was in turn interpreted as implying that the observer somehow -creates- reality. Dopernicus shocked the human race by telling us that we are not at the center of the worldB Quantum &hysics is telling us that we /our very consciousness1 is at the center of the world. %e are gods who create our own universe. The )rain as a Measurement *evice Quantum Theory is really about waves of possibilities. ) particle is described by a wave function as being in many possible places at the same time. %hen the particle is observed, its wave function -collapses- with definite attributes, including the location it occupies, but such attributes cannot be foreseen until they actually collapse. +n other words, the observer can only observe a 4uantum system after having interfered with it. Gon $eumann highlighted an inconsistency in the standard interpretation of Quantum Theory: the ob"ects to be observed are treated as 4uantum ob"ects /or waves1, while the ob"ects that observe /the instruments1 are classical ob"ects, with a shape, a position and no wave. The -measurer- is a natural ob"ect as much as the -measured-, but we grant it immunity from Quantum Theory. Gon $eumann ob"ected to dividing the world into two parts that behaved differently. Quantum Theory une4uivocally states

that everything is a 4uantum system, no matter how small or big it is. n the other hand, if everything is a 4uantum system regulated by a wave of possibilities, what makes it collapseF Gon $eumann was led again to postulate that something -differentfrom a 4uantum system has the power to cause such a collapse, and that something had to be human consciousness. $othing in the world is real unless perceived by a mind, as the 2ritish philosopher 2erkeley had argued centuries before Gon $eumann. %hat if we built an instrument which is smaller than the system to be observedF %hat would be a 4uantum system: the smaller or the bigger, the measurer or the measuredF The range of uncertainty of a particle is measured by .a( &lanck's constant. 2ecause &lanck's constant is so small, big ob"ects have a well#defined position and shape and everything. The features of small ob"ects such as particles are instead highly uncertain. Therefore, large ob"ects are granted an immunity from 4uantum laws that is based only on their si!e. Consciousness Creates Reality ?ohn %heeler believes that the collapse can be caused by anything that /aware or unaware1 makes a -record- of the observation. )n observer is anything in $ature that causes the observation to become public and irreversible. )n observer could be a crystal. Recently, Roger &enrose, inspired by work done initiated by *renkel Karolyha!y in the 9=>0s, has invoked gravity to "ustify that special immunity: in the case of large ob"ects, the space#time curvature affects the system's wave function, causing it to collapse spontaneously into one of the possibilities. &recisely, &enrose believes that different space#time curvatures cannot overlap, because each curvature implies a metric and only one metric can be the metric of the universe at a certain point at a certain time. +f two systems engage in some interaction, $ature must choose which metrics prevails. Therefore, he concludes, the coupling of a field with a gravitational field of some strength must cause the wave function of the system to collapse. This kind of self#collapse is called -ob"ective- reduction to distinguish it from the traditional reduction of Quantum Theory which is caused by environmental interaction /such as a measurement1. 3elf#collapse occurs to everything, but the mass of the system determines how 4uickly it occurs: large bodies self#collapse very 4uickly, elementary particles would not for millions or even billions of years. That is why the collapse of wave functions for elementary particles in practice occurs only when caused by environmental interaction. +n practice, the collapse of the wave, which is the fundamental way in which Quantum Theory can relate to our perceptions, is still a pu!!le, a mathematical accident that still has no definite e(planation. +t is not clear to anybody whether this -collapse- corresponds to an actual change in the state of the particle, or whether it "ust represents a change in the observer's amount of knowledge or what. +t is not even clear if -observation- is the only operation that can cause the collapse. )nd whether it has to be -human- /as in -conscious-1 observation: does a cat collapse the wave of a particleF Aoes a rockF %hat attributes must an ob"ect possess to collapse a humans haveF +f not, what is the smallest ob"ect another particle collapse the wave of a particleF /+n e(ist because each particle's wave would be collapsed waveF +s it something that only that can collapse a waveF Dan which case the problem wouldn't by the surrounding particles1.

%hat is the measuring apparatus in Quantum &hysicsF +s it the platform that supports the e(perimentF +s it the pushing of a buttonF +s it a lens in the microscopeF +s it the light beam that reaches the eye of the observerF +s it the eye of the observerF +s it the visual process in the mindF +t is also a mystery how $ature knows which of the two systems is the measurement system and which one is the measured system: the one that collapses is the measured one, but the two systems are "ust systems, and it is not clear how $ature can discriminate the measuring one from the measured one and let only the latter collapse. +f a wave collapses /i.e., a particle assumes well#defined attributes1 only when observed by a conscious being, then Quantum Theory seems to specify a privileged role for the mind: the mind enters the world through the gap in 0eisenberg's uncertainty principle. +ndeed, the mind -must- e(ist for the universe to e(ist, otherwise nobody would be there to observe it and therefore the world would only be possibilities that never turn into actualities. Reality is "ust the content of consciousness, as the

0ungarian physicist 8ugene %igner pointed out in 9=>9. f course, mind must therefore be an entity that lies outside the realm of Quantum Theory and of &hysics in general. The mind must be something special that does not truly belong to -this- world. %igner pointed out that to every action there is a reaction: why shouldn6t there be a reaction to a conscious observation of a physical phenomenonF +f a phenomenon e(erts an influence on my consciousness when + observe it, then my consciousness must e(ert an influence on the phenomenon. therwise the fundamental tenet that to every action there is a reaction is no longer true. %igner observed that 3chroedinger6s e4uation is linear, but would stop being linear if its ob"ect were the very consciousness that collapses the wave. Therefore, 3chroedinger6s e4uation /which is linear1 would result in a non#linear algorithm that may "ustify the mind6s privileged status. +f the collapse occurs only when observed by a conscious being, if the collapse occurs at the border between mind and matter, as %igner believes, then the evolution of the universe changed after the appearance of human beings /there was no collapse anywhere before mind appeared1. ,ndeterred by this ob"ection, the ,3) physicist ?ohn %heeler believes that ours is a -participatory- universe, one in which consciousness participates in creating reality. The observer and the phenomenon are engaged in a creative act that yields reality. Donsciousness does not create reality. Donsciousness' role is e(tremely limited: it can't even choose which of the possibilities contained in the wave function will become reality. +t can only -precipitate- reality out of many possibilities. %hich possibility becomes reality is up to nature. $onetheless, %igner and %heeler believe that consciousness is crucial to creating reality: as limited as its contribution is, without it there would be no reality, only possibilities. %heeler even speculated that the rise of consciousness retroactively determined the history of the universe because it collapsed the mother of all waves that had never been collapsed before, thereby fi(ing every single event in the previous life of the universe. Quantum theoretical effects could be considered negligible if they only affected particles. ,nfortunately, 8rwin 3chroedinger, with his famous cat e(periment, established that 0eisenberg's uncertainty affects big ob"ects too. 2asically, 3chroedinger devised a situation in which a 4uantum phenomenon causes the cat to die or stay alive. 3ince any 4uantum phenomenon is uncertain, the cat's life is also uncertain: until we look at the cat, the cat is neither alive nor dead, but simply a wave of possibilities itself. /) popular ob"ection to 3chroedinger6s argument is that the cat can never be in a superimposed state because every big ob"ect, by definition, is never isolated, it is always entangled with the rest of its surroundings, and therefore it is -collapsed- all the time1. Inventin! Reality +n the 9=J0s Richard *eynman offered another interpretation of Quantum Theory: he assumed that all possible states allowed by a wave function e(ist at any moment. +n other words, he took 3chroedinger6s e4uation to the letter. The state that is revealed by measurement is merely the state which represents the -path of least action- for the particle relative to the observer. 2ut the particle is in every place allowed by its wave function. )n observation does not reveal reality: an observation is an interaction between the observer and the observed system, and the observation simply reveals that: the interaction between the observer and the observed system. +n a sense, the observer -invents- the particle. The particle per se does not e(ist /or, better, it is merely a field1. %hat e(ist is a range of values, or, better, a set of ranges of values, which our observations translate into values for attributes of a particle. The Multiverse: The &uest for Certainty The traditional /or -Dopenhagen-1 interpretation of Quantum .echanics seems to be trapped in its unwavering faith in uncertainty. thers have looked for ways out of uncertainty. ne possibility is to deny that the wave function collapses at all. +nstead of admitting a random choice of one of many possibilities for the future, one can subscribe to all of the possibilities at the same time. +n other words, the probabilistic nature of Quantum .echanics allows the universe to unfold in an infinite number of ways.

0ugh 8verett's -many#universes- interpretation of Quantum .echanics, originally put forward in 9=C<, states, basically, that if something physically can happen, it does: in some universe. 8verett interpreted 4uantum -possibilities- as actualities. ) particle -is- in many places at the same time: those places are in different universes. &hysical reality consists of a collection of universes: the -multiverse-. %e e(ist in one copy for each universe and observe all possible outcomes of a situation. +t is not only the universe that splits in many universes, it is also the observer that splits in many observers. *or a particle there is no wave of possibilities: each possibility is an actuality in one universe. /)lternatively, one can say that there is one observer for each possible outcome of a measurement1. 8ach measurement splits the universe in many universes /or, as .ichael 5ockwood puts it, each measurement splits the observer1. 2iographies form a branching structure, and one which depends on how often they are observed. $o reductionIcollapse occurs. The wave function evolves in a deterministic way, "ust like in $ewton's physics. $aturally, the observer perceives e(actly what + am perceiving: a flow of smooth changes. There is an alternative way to present 8verett's ideas. 8verett basically accepts that the 3chroedinger e4uation is all there is. The world is described by that e4uation. %e have to take it literally. The particle is in all the states that the e4uation prescribes. The trick is that the state of the observer is as superposed as that of the observed system. Therefore the observer sees all of the possible states of the observed system. This way the world does not split, but the mind of the observer does. 8ach mind observes only one state of the many that are possible according to the 3chroedinger e4uation. Therefore each mind perceives a separate world, that is a subset of the world described by the 3chroedinger e4uation. +n a sense, each mind views the world from a sub"ective perspective. The ob"ective state of the world is the one described by the e4uation, and it corresponds to the superposition of all the states observed by all the minds of the observer. The 2ritish physicist 3tephen 0awking is even trying to write down the wave function of the universe, which will actually describe an infinite set of possible universes. 2asically, he looks at the universe as if it were one big particle. ?ust like the wave function of a particle describes an infinite set of possible particles, the wave function of the universe actually describes an infinite set of possible universes. +n 8verett's multiverse, Quantum Theory is deterministic and the role of the observer is vastly reduced /we really don't need an observer anymore, since the wave collapses in every single universe, albeit in different ways1. Quantum Theory looks more like classical theory, e(cept for the multiplication of universes. The Immanent Manyverse 2ecause of the apparent appro(imation of any 4uantum theory description of a phenomenon, the +sraeli physicist Aavid Aeutsch also thinks that our universe cannot possibly constitute the whole of reality, it can only be part of a -multiverse- of parallel universes. 2ut Aeutsch's multiverse is not a mere collection of parallel universes, with a single flow of time. 0e highlights the contradiction of assuming an e(ternal, superior time in which all spacetimes flow. This would still be a classical view of the world. Aeutsch's manyverse is instead a collection of moments. There is no such a thing as the -flow of time-. 8ach -moment- is a universe of the manyverse. 8ach moment e(ists forever, it does not flow from a previous moment to a following one. Time does not flow because time is simply a collection of universes. %e e(ist in multiple versions, in universes called -moments-. 8ach version of us is indirectly aware of the others because the various universes are linked together by the same physical laws, and causality provides a convenient ordering. 2ut causality is not deterministic in the classical way: it is more like predicting than like causing. +f we analy!e the pieces of a "igsaw pu!!le, we can predict where some of the missing pieces fall. 2ut it would be misleading to say that our analysis of the pu!!le -caused- those pieces to be where they are, although it is true that their position is -determined- by the other pieces being where they are. *urthermore, Aeutsch claims that Quantum Theory is not enough to understand reality. 0e does not adhere to the dominant philosophical stance, that to understand a system is to understand its parts and to have a theory of that system is to have a set of predictions of its future behavior. Aeutsch thinks that the predictions are merely

the tools to verify if the theory is correct, but what really matters is the -e(planationthat the theory provides. 3cientific knowledge consists of e(planations, not of facts or of predictions of facts. )nd, contrary to the dominant -reductionist- approach, an e(planation that reduces large#scale events to the movement of the smallest possible constituents of matter is not an e(planation. )s he puts it, why is a specific atom of copper on the nose of the statue of DhurchillF $ot because the dynamic e4uations of the universe predict this and that, and not because of the story of that particle, but because Dhurchill was a famous person, and famous people are rewarded with statues, and statues are built of bron!e, and bron!e is made of copper. 3cientists who adhere to the reductionist stance believe that the rules governing elementary particles /the base of the reductionist hierarchy1 e(plain everything but they do not provide the kind of answer that we would call -e(planation-. 3o we need four strands of science to understand reality: a theory of matter /4uantum theory1, a theory of evolution, a theory of knowledge /epistemology1, and a theory of computation. The combined theory provides the -e(planations- that Aeutsch is interested in. Einselection: *ar%inian Collapse ne man who has been studying the problem of how classical &hysics emerges from Quantum &hysics /how ob"ects that behave deterministically emerge from particles that behave probabilistically, how coherent states of Quantum .echanics become classical ones1 is the &olish#born %o"ciech Murek. 0e does not believe that consciousness has anything to do with it: it is rather the environment that determines the emergence of reality. 3ince 9==9, e(periments have been performed to show the progressive evolution of a system from 4uantum to classical behavior. The goal is to observe the progressive collapse of the wave function, the progressive disappearance of 4uantum weirdness, and the progressive emergence of reality from probability. Murek /-Reduction of the %ave &acket-, 9=:J1 proposed a different twist to the debate on the -collapse of the wave-. +t doesn't necessarily take an observer. Murek thinks that the environment destroys 4uantum -coherence- /superposition1. The environment includes anything that may interact with the 4uantum system, from a single photon to a microscope. The environment causes -decoherence- /the choice of one or some of the possible outcomes1 and decoherence causes selection /or -einselection-1 of which possibilities will become reality. The -best fit- states turn out to be the classical states. 3ystems collapse to classical states because classical states are the ones that best -fit- the environment. The environment causes the collapse of the wave "ust like an occurs to any system that interacts with other systems. 5arge and not 4uantum ob"ects because they are inherently -decoheredof interacting parts. 3mall ob"ects are isolated to some e(tent 4uantum behavior. observer. Aecoherence ob"ects are classical by being a collection and therefore e(hibit

+n the ,3), ?ames )nglin, a close associate of Murek, is studying the evolution of -open 4uantum systems- far from e4uilibrium, which resemble &rigogine's studies on open classical systems. This line of research is, indirectly, establishing intriguing similarities between the emergence of classical systems from 4uantum systems and the emergence of living systems from non#living systems. Consistent +istories The -consistent histories formulation- of Quantum Theory originated with the ,3) physicist Robert 7riffiths /-Donsistent 0istories and the +nterpretation of Quantum .echanics-, 9=:J1. The history of a system is a se4uence of 4uantum events /i.e., wave functions1. Quantum Theory, according to this interpretation, is simply a tool to calculate the probability of a history. This only applies to -consistent histories-, later renamed -decoherent histories- by .urray 7ell#.ann and ?ames 0artle /-)lternative Aecohering 0istories in Quantum .echanics-, 9==01, i.e. to se4uences of -4uestions- about the system that are compatible.

+n a sense, this is a theory of which sets of -classical- 4uestions can be consistently asked of a 4uantum system. Questions that are fundamentally inconsistent are meaningless if asked at the same time. 0istories can be used to calculate the usual probabilities for 4uantum systems /e.g., a particle1 to be measured by a measuring device, but they can also be used to assign probabilities in the absence of any measurement /e.g., to describe a system in outer space1. )nother advantage of this approach is that, philosophically speaking, the -collapseof the wave becomes merely a mathematical procedure for calculating probabilistic correlations rather than an actual physical phenomenon, thus eliminating the special role of the conscious observer. )t any point in time, there can be a whole set of consistent histories for a given system, each corresponding to a particular set of consistent 4uestions. Thus, 4uantum uncertainty is still there. +n a sense, this is a mirror interpretation of 8verett's multi#verse interpretation: many histories for one world, instead of one history of many worlds. )ccording to 5ee 3molin, there is only one universe for everybody, but each observer only has a partial view of it, and therefore produces a different mathematical description of it, and therefore a different 4uantum theory. This is a relativistic view that recogni!es the sub"ectivity of the observation: each observer sees a different world, or -conte(t-, and describes it with a different 4uantum theory. The catch is that they must all be consistent, i.e. different observers must get the same answer to the same 4uestion. *otini .arkopoulou /-)n +nsider's 7uide To Quantum Dausal 0istories-, 20001 proposed that the -conte(t- is nothing but the past of the observer. The past of an observer at a given time /a relativistic concept1 determines the 4uantum history of the world for that observer /a 4uantum concept1. Thus 5ee 3molin argued that -the universe is made of processes, not things-. &ubits +n the 9==0s another interpretation of 4uantum mechanics has been put forth by the )ustrian physicist )nton Meilinger. 0e set out to find a fundamental principle that would e(plain the three odd features of the 4uantum world: 4uanti!ation /all fundamental physical 4uantities come in discrete amounts1, randomness /we can only know the probability of an event1 and entanglement /everything is connected, no matter how far ob"ects are1.

0e proposed a very simple principle: each elementary system, called -4ubit- /e.g., the spin of the electron1, carries one and only one bit of informationB two systems carry two and only two bits of informationB and so forth. )fter all, our physical description of the world is represented by propositions, and each proposition can be true or false, i.e. each elementary system carries one and only one bit of information. The conse4uences of this principle are simple to derive: + can't know two things about an electron, but only one at the time /uncertainty1, everything has to be 4uanti!ed because the unit of information is the bit /yesIno, or oneI!ero1B Two systems carry e(actly two bits of information, which means that they are entangled forever /if one changes, the other one has to change too in order to still yield two bits of information1. 3chroedinger's e4uation can be derived as the description of motion in a three# dimensional information space.

Meilinger's interpretation is therefore that only information truly e(ists and that 4uantum mechanics is simply a theory of how information behaves in this world. Information oss

+n the 9==0s the Autch physicist 7erard6t 0ooft proposed that Quantum &hysics is Dlassical &hysics after an information loss. This is yet another variation on 8instein6s -hidden variables- theory. 0ooft noticed that classical variables can take any value, whereas 4uantum variables can take only some values. Thus, de facto, a classical system gives rise to a 4uantum system when it loses information. 0e thinks that this information loss can be due to some -dissipative forces-. %e know that different starting conditions can lead to the same results because of dissipative forces in the macro#world. *or e(ample, if you throw two coins from the top of a skyscraper at different speeds, air friction will cause them to reach the ground at the same speed. The observer will conclude that nature only allows some discrete values for the speed of the coins, when in fact it is air friction that caused them to land at the same speed. $ature is classical at its most fundamental level, but 4uantum at the level of the laboratory because of -dissipation-. Interpretations of Classical Physics The fact that Quantum &hysics lends itself to many contradicting interpretations has been widely publici!ed from the very beginning. 5ess publici!ed is the fact that $ewton6s &hysics is no less open to interpretations. $ewton6s greatest invention was the concept of -mass-. )sk ten scientists what -massis and you will get ten different answers. .ass is at least three things in $ewton6s &hysics: a measure of resistance to acceleration, a measure of how much an ob"ect attracts other ob"ects, and a measure of how much an ob"ect is attracted by other ob"ects /la!iness, allure and weakness1. %hichever of the three you choose, where does it come fromF %hy do ob"ects have this e(oteric 4uantity of -mass-F )nother fundamental tenet of $ewton6s &hysics /that actually comes from 7alileo1 is the notion that ob"ects tend to move in a straight line at constant speed. )ristotle thought that ob"ects tend to stop if they are not pushed. 7alileo reali!ed that ob"ects /such as arrows1 keep moving even when no force is pushing them. Thus it made sense to assume that ob"ects want to keep moving indefinitely. /*riction and gravity cause them to slow down or bend1. This works. 2ut: why do ob"ects have a preference for traveling in a straight line at constant speedF %here does this property come fromF )gain, this is open to interpretation. +n concluding, it is not surprising at all there are several different interpretations of what Quantum &hysics means: there are still, three centuries later, different interpretations of what $ewton6s &hysics means. The Interpretation of the +uman )rain ver its first century of e(istence, Quantum &hysics has been the sub"ect of countless -interpretations-. +ts implications /that reality is created by the observer, that everything is connected all the time, that the universe is run by randomness1 sound -odd- and therefore re4uire that someone -interprets- them for the human mind. 0owever, one could look at the problem from the opposite viewpoint: what is it in the human brain that makes Quantum &hysics look so oddF .aybe there is nothing to interpret in Quantum &hysics, but there is something to interpret in the human brain. .aybe another brain would not find Quantum &hysics so odd, and it would in fact see the world e(actly the way Quantum &hysics presents it /with ob"ects in multiple positions at the same time and with everything in the universe connected all the time1. The human brain has a -cognitive closure-. ?ust like any other brain, there are things that our brain "ust cannot do. %e cannot see or hear fre4uencies that other animals can see and hear. There is probably an infinite number of things that our brain "ust cannot do, because it was not designed for them. .aybe understanding Quantum &hysics is one of the many things that our brain "ust cannot do. The Physics of Elementary Particles: Close Encounters %ith Matter Quantum Theory redrew our picture of nature and started a race to discover the ultimate constituents of matter. This program culminated in formulation of the theories of Quantum 8lectrodynamics /virtually invented by the 2ritish physicist &aul Airac in 9=2: when he published his e4uation for the electron in an electromagnetic field, which combined Quantum .echanics and 3pecial Relativity1 and Quantum Dhromodynamics /virtually invented by the ,3) physicist .urray 7ell#.ann in 9=>; when he hypothesi!ed the breakdown of the nucleus into 4uarks1. +t follows from Airac6s e4uation that for every particle there is a corresponding anti#particle which has the same mass and opposite electric charge, and, generally

speaking, behaves like the particle moving backwards in space and time. *orces are mediated by discrete packets of energy, commonly represented as virtual particles or -4uanta-. The 4uantum of the electromagnetic field /e.g., of light1 is the photon: any electromagnetic phenomenon involves the e(change of a number of photons between the particles taking part in it. &hotons e(change energy in units of the &lanck constant, a very small value, but nonetheless a discrete value. ther forces are defined by other 4uanta: the weak force gravitation by the graviton and the nuclear force by gluons. by the % particle,

&articles can, first of all, be divided according to a principle first formulated /in 9=2C1 by the )ustrian physicist %olfgang &auli: some particles /the -fermions-, named after the +talian physicist 8nrico *ermi1 never occupy the same state at the same time, whereas other particles /the -bosons-, named after the +ndian physicist 3atyendra 2ose1 do. The wave functions of two fermions can never completely overlap, whereas the wave functions of two bosons can completely overlap /the bosons basically lose their identity and become one1. /Technically, -boson- is the general name for any particle with an angular momentum, or spin, of an integer number, whereas -fermion- is the general name for any particle with a odd half 4uantum unit of spin1. +t turns out /not too surprisingly1 that fermions /such as electrons, protons, neutrons1 make up the matter of the universe, while bosons /photons, gravitons, gluons1 are the virtual particles that glue the fermions together. 2osons therefore represent the forces that act on fermions. They are the 4uanta of interaction. )n interaction is always implemented via the e(change of bosons between fermions. /There e(ist particles that are bosons but do not represent interactions, the so called -mesons-, first hypothesi!ed by the ?apanese physicist 0ideki Eukawa in 9=;C1. .esons decay very rapidly. $o stable meson is known1. Three forces that act on elementary particles have been identified: the electromagnetic, the -weak- and the -strong- forces. Dorrespondingly, there are bosons that are weak /% and M particles1, strong /the gluons1 and electromagnetic /the photon1. *ermions can be classified in several ways. *irst of all, the neutron and the proton /the particles that made up the nuclei of atoms1 are not elementary: they are made of 9: 4uarks /si( 4uarks, each one coming in three -colors-1. Then there are twelve leptons: the electron, the muon, the tau, their three neutrinos and their si( anti# particles. ) better way to organi!e *ermions is to divide them in si( families, each led by two leptons: the electron goes with the electron's neutrino, the down 4uark and the up 4uark. This family makes up most of the matter we know. )nother family of *ermions is led by the muon and contains its neutrino and contains two more 4uarks. The third family contains the tau particle, its neutrino and two more 4uarks /bottom and top1. &articles made of 4uarks are called -hadrons- and comprise -baryons- /made of three 4uarks, and therefore fermions, such as the proton and the neutron1 and -mesons/made of one 4uark and one anti4uark, and therefore bosons1. The electromagnetic force between leptons is generated by the virtual e(change of mass#less particles called -photons-. The weak force is due to the % and M particles /there are two % particles1. The -strong- force between 4uarks /the one that creates protons and neutrons1 is generated by the virtual e(change of -gluons-. Quarks come in -si(- flavors and three -colors-. 7luons are sensitive to color, not to flavor. The -strong force- between protons and neutrons is a direct conse4uence of the color force. 5eptons do not have color, but have flavor /for e(ample, the electron and its neutrino have different flavors1. The -weak- force is actually the flavor force between leptons. %N and %# are the 4uanta of this flavor force. +n general, according to Quantum *ield Theory, 4uantum fluctuations cause vibrations that we perceive as attributes of particles: mass, spin, charge, etc. Thus a particle /e.g., an electron1 is a vibrational pattern /a pattern of vibrations in a 4uantum field1. Gibrations interact among themselves. %hen we observe this interaction, we perceive it as particles interacting with each other by e(changing virtual particles /that we interpret as forces, e.g. electromagnetism1. This model e(plains what we know of matter. +t does not e(plain why there are J

forces /fields1, 9: 4uarks, si( leptons, etc. The numbers seem to be arbitrary. +n particular, it does not e(plain why particles have the masses they have /rather arbitrary numbers that span ten orders of magnitude, the top 4uark being about 900,000 times -heavier- than the electron, and more than one trillion times heavier than the electron#neutrino1. ) field /called the 0iggs field, mediated by the 0iggs boson, an idea proposed in 9=>J by the 2ritish physicist &eter 0iggs1 is supposed to permeate the universe, and the mass of a particle is supposed to be a measure of the intensity of its interaction with the 0iggs field. $or does the theory e(plain why this universe needs three fundamental forces /weak, strong and electromagnetic1. Roughly, the strong force /that acts only between 4uarks1 creates nuclei. The electromagnetic force /that acts only between charged particles1 creates atoms. Together these two forces create the matter that we see. The weak force is responsible for the decay of 4uarks and leptons into other 4uarks and leptons. %hen a 4uark or lepton decays, it is said to change -flavor-. %hile it is difficult tovisualize the weak interaction, it is quite important for our being here because it

transforms particles into other particles that account for stars and life (the thermonuclear fusion that transforms hydrogen into deuterium and fuels the Sun is a weak-interaction process, and the life forms of the Earth were made possible by the production of carbon and heavier elements inside stars) !espite the multitude of particles, all the stable matter of the universe is made of "ust the
two least#massive 4uarks /up 4uark and down 4uark1 and the least#massive leptons /the electron and the neutrinos1. Unification: In ,earch of ,ymmetry 3ince the electric charge also varies with flavor, it can be considered a flavor force as well. )long these lines, in 9=>< 3teven %einberg and )bdus 3alam unified the weak and the electromagnetic forces into one flavor force /incidentally founding -Quantum *lavor Aynamics-, analogous of -Quantum Dhromodynamics-1, and discovered a third flavor force, mediated by the M 4uanta. The unified flavor force therefore admits four 4uanta: the photon, the %# boson, the %N boson and the M boson. These 4uanta behave like the duals of gluons: they are sensitive to flavor, not to color. )ll 4uanta are described by the so called -Eang#.ills field-, which is a generali!ation of the .a(well field /.a(well's theory becomes a particular case of Quantum *lavor Aynamics: -Quantum 8lectrodynamics-1. Therefore, the world is made of si( leptons, si( 4uarks, four bosons for leptons, and eight gluons for 4uarks. )lternatively, leptons and 4uarks can also be combined in three families of fermions: one comprising the electron, its neutrino and two flavors of 4uarks /-up- and -down-1B one comprising the muon, its neutrino and two flavors of 4uarks /-strangeand -charmed-1B and one comprising the tau lepton /-tauon-1, its neutrino and two flavors of 4uarks /-bottom- and -top-1. &lus the three corresponding families of anti#particles. 8ight particles per family /each flavor of 4uark counts as three particles1. The grand total is J: fermions. The bosons are twelve: eight gluons, the photon and the three bosons for the weak interaction. 3i(ty particles overall. The profusion of particles is simply comic. Quantum .echanics has always led to this conse4uence: in order to e(plain matter, a multitude of hitherto unknown entities is first postulated and then -observed- /actually, verified consistent with the theory1. .ore and more entities are necessary to e(plain all phenomena that occur in the laboratory. %hen the theory becomes a self#parody, a new scheme is proposed whereby those entities can be decomposed in smaller units. 3o physicists are already, silently, seeking evidence that leptons and 4uarks are not really elementary, but made of a smaller number of particles. +t is easy to predict that they will eventually break the 4uark and the electron, and start all over again. 3everal other characteristics look bi!arre. *or e(ample, the three families of fermions are very similar: what need did $ature have to create three almost identical families of particlesF The spins of these particles is totally arbitrary. *ermions have spin 9I2 and bosons have integral spin. %hyF The whole set of e4uations for these particles has 9= arbitrary constants. %hyF 7luons are fundamentally different from photons: photons are intermediaries of the electromagnetic force but do not themselves carry an electric charge, whereas gluons

are intermediaries of the color force that do carry themselves a color /and therefore interact among themselves1. %hyF )lso, because color comes in three varieties, there are many gluons, while there is only one photon. )s a result, the color force behaves in a fundamentally different way from the electromagnetic force. +n particular, it e(tends to infinite. The electromagnetic force gets weaker as the distance increases, while the color force rises to a constant value that does not change as the 4uarks are pulled apart. That confines 4uarks inside protons and neutrons. %hyF )lso, the symmetry of the electroweak force /whereby the photon and the bosons get transformed among themselves1 is not e(act as in the case of Relativity /where time and space coordinates transform among themselves1: the photon is mass#less, whereas bosons have masses. nly at e(tremely high temperatures the symmetry is e(act. )t lower temperatures a spontaneous breakdown of symmetry occurs. This seems to be a general caprice of nature. )t breaks down: ferromagnetism, isotropic li4uids, the temperature can create new properties for matter: it creates orientation for a crystal, it creates masses different temperatures symmetry electroweak force... ) change in creates magnetism for metals, it for bosons.

The fundamental forces e(hibit striking similarities when their bosons are mass#less. The three families of particles, in particular, ac4uire identical properties. This leads scientists to believe that the -natural- way of being for bosons in a remote past was mass#less. 0ow did they ac4uire the mass we observe today in our worldF )nd why do they all have different massesF The 0iggs mechanism gives fermions and bosons a mass. $aturally it re4uires bosons of its own, the 0iggs bosons /particles of spin 01. 8ach interaction e(hibits a form of symmetry, but unfortunately they are all different, as e(emplified by the fact that 4uarks cannot turn into leptons. +n the case of the weak force, particles /e.g., the electron and its neutrino1 can be interchanged, while leaving the overall e4uations unchanged, according to a transformation called 3,/21, meaning that one particle can be e(changed for another one. *or the strong force /i.e., the 4uarks1 the symmetrical transformation is 3,/;1, meaning that three particles can be shuffled around. *or the electromagnetic force, it is ,/91, meaning that only the electrical and magnetic component of the field can be e(changed for each other. )ny attempt to find a symmetry of a higher order results into the creation of new particles. 3,/C1, for e(ample, entails the e(istence of 2J bosons... but it does allow 4uarks and leptons to mutate into each other /five at the time1, albeit at terribly high temperatures. *inally, Quantum Theory does not incorporate gravity. 3ince gravity is an interaction /albeit only visible among large bodies1, it does re4uire its own 4uantum of interaction, the so called -graviton- /a boson of spin 21. nce gravity is 4uanti!ed, one can compute the probability of a particle interacting with the gravitational field: the result is... infinite. The difficulty of 4uanti!ing gravity is due to its self#referential /i.e., non# linear1 nature: gravity alters the geometry of space and time, and that alteration in turns affects the behavior of gravity. The fundamental differences between Quantum Theory and 7eneral Relativity can also be seen topologically: the universe of Relativity is curved and continuousB the universe of Quantum Theory is flat and granular. Relativity prescribes that matter warps the continuum of spacetime, which in turns affects the motion of matter. Quantum Theory prescribes that matter interacts via 4uanta of energy in a flat spacetime. /8ven finding a common vocabulary is difficultO1 The bridge between the two views would be to -4uanti!e- spacetime, the relativistic intermediary between matter and matter: then the two formulations would be identical. +f spacetime warping could be e(pressed in terms of 4uanta of energy, then the two prescriptions would be the same. The truth is that Quantum Theory had reached an impasse. There seems to be no way that /7eneral1 Relativity can be modified to fit Quantum .echanics. ,uperstrin! Theory: +i!her *imensions Dountless approaches have been proposed to integrate the 4uantum and the /general1 relativistic views of the world. The two theories are obviously very different and the e(cuse that they operate at different -granularity- levels of nature /Quantum Theory being for the very small and

Relativity Theory being for the very big1 is not very credible. &hysicists have been looking for a theory that e(plains both, a theory of which both would be special cases. ,nfortunately, applying Quantum Theory to Relativity Theory has proved unrealistic. The problem is that they are founded on different -metaphors- of the world. Relativity Theory binds together space#time and matter. Quantum Theory binds together matter and the observer /an observer who is supposed to verify the conse4uences of binding together matter and the observer who is supposed to...1. Relativity focuses on how the gravity of massive bodies bends the structure of time and space and are in turn influenced in their motion by the curvature of space#time. Quantum Theory focuses on the fu!!iness in the life of elementary particles. +f one simply feeds 3chroedinger's e4uation /how the world evolves according to Quantum Theory1 into 8instein's e4uation /how the world evolves according to Relativity Theory1 the resulting e4uation appears to be meaningless. 2asically, we don6t have a &hysics that holds in places where both gravity and 4uantum effects are crucial, like at the centers of black holes or during the first moments of the 2ig 2ang. 7eneral Relativity e(plains motion. 8instein6s e4uations are precise. Quantum Theory e(plains that motion is undefined. 0eisenberg6s principle is fu!!y. 7eneral Relativity shows that time is relative. Quantum Theory assumes a universal watch setting the pace for the universe. -Time- looks completely different in one theory and in the other, almost as if the two theories used the term -time- to refer to two different things. Aitto for the -observer-: 8instein6s observer is part of the universe and in fact is affected by the universe, whereas Quantum Theory6s observer has a special status that e(empts her from 4uantum laws /the 4uantum universe is divided into particles that are measured and -observers- who make measurements1. ,uperstrin!s ) route to merging Quantum Theory and Relativity Theory is to start with Relativity and see if Quantum Theory can be found as a special case of 8instein's e4uations. +n 9=9=, the 7erman physicist Theodor Kalu!a discovered that electromagnetism arises if a fifth dimension is added to 8instein's four#dimensional spacetime continuum: by re#writing 8instein's field e4uations in five dimensions, Kalu!a obtained a theory that contained both 8instein's 7eneral Relativity /i.e., the theory of gravitation1 and .a(well's theory of electromagnetism. Kalu!a thought that light's privileged status came from the fact that light is a curling of the fourth spatial dimension. 2asically, it was an e(tension of 8instein6s fundamental intuition: gravitation is due to the geometry of a four#dimensional space#time. Kalu!a reali!ed that one only has to add a fifth dimension in order to obtain the same statement for electromagnetism: electromagnetism is due to the geometry of a five#dimensional space#time. ) theory of gravitation in five dimensions yields both a theory of gravitation and a theory of electromagnetism in four dimensions. The price to pay is that the fifth dimension behaves in a weird way. The 3wedish mathematician skar Klein e(plained how the fifth dimension might be curled up in a loop the si!e of the -&lanck length- /the shortest length that Quantum &hysics can deal with1. The universe may have five dimensions, e(cept that one is not infinite but closed in on itself. +n the 9=>0s, the ,3) physicist 2ryce Ae%itt and others proved that a Kalu!a theory in higher dimensions is even more intriguing: when the fifth and higher dimensions are curled up, the theory yields the Eang#.ills fields re4uired by Quantum .echanics. The Kalu!a#Klein theory made a fundamental assumption: the physical world as we know it, and in particular its fundamental forces, originate from the geometry of hidden dimensions. The fundamental forces appear to be -forces- only in a four#dimensional subset of the universe. They are actually "ust geometry. +t was this approach that in 9=<J led the ,3) physicist ?ohn 3chwar! to formulate 3uperstring Theory. 0is early studies had been triggered by a formula discovered in 9=>: by the +talian physicist 7abriel Gene!iano and its interpretation as a vibrating string by the ?apanese physicist Eoichiro $ambu. 3chwar! 4uickly reali!ed that both the standard model for elementary particles and 7eneral Relativity6s theory of

gravitation were implied by 3uperstring Theory. 3uperstring Theory views particles as one#dimensional entities /or -strings-1 rather than points: tiny loops of the magnitude of the &lanck length. &articles are simply -resonances- /or modes of vibrations1 of tiny strings. +n other words, all there is vibrating strings and each particle is due to a particular mode of vibration of the string. 8ach vibrational mode has a fi(ed energy, which means a mass, charge and so forth. Thus the illusion of a particle. )ll matter consists of these tiny vibrating strings. The key point is that one of these vibrational modes is the -graviton-, the particle that accounts for gravitation: 3uperstring theory is a Quantum Theory that predicts the e(istence of 7eneral Relativity6s gravitation. The behavior of our universe is largely defined by three universal constants: the speed of light, the &lanck constant and the gravitational constant. The -&lanck massis a combination of those three magic numbers and is the mass /or energy1 at which the superstring effects would be visible. ,nfortunately, this is much higher than the mass of any of the known particles. 3uch energies were available only in the early stages of the universe and for a fraction of a second. The particles that have been observed in the laboratory are only those that re4uire small energies. ) full appreciation of 3uperstring Theory would re4uire enormous energies. 2asically, 3uperstring Theory is the first scientific theory that states the practical impossibility of being verified e(perimentally /at least during the lifetime of its inventors1. *urthermore, the superstring e4uations yield many appro(imate solutions, each one providing a list of mass#less particles. This can be interpreted as allowing a number of different universes: ours is one particular solution, and that solution will yield the particles we are accustomed with. 8ven the number of dimensions would be an effect of that particular solution. There is, potentially, an infinite number of particles. 2efore the symmetry breaks down, each fermion has its own boson, which has e(actly the same mass. 3o a -photinois postulated for a -photon- and a -s#electron- for the electron. 3pace#time must have ten dimensions. 3i( of them are curved in minuscule tubes that are negligible for most uses. .atter originated when those si( dimensions of space collapsed into superstrings. ,ltimately, elementary particles are -compactifiedhyper#dimensional space. 8instein's dream was to e(plain matter#energy the same way he e(plained gravity: as fluctuations in the geometry of space#time. The -heterotic- variation of 3uperstring Theory, advanced by the ,3) physicist Aavid 7ross and others in the 9=:0s, does "ust that: particles emerge from geometry, "ust like gravity and the other forces of nature. The heterotic string is a closed string that vibrates /at the same time1 clockwise in a ten#dimensional space and counterclockwise in a 2>#dimensional space /9> dimensions of which are compactified1. 8instein's 7eneral Theory of Relativity is implied by 3uperstring Theory, to the point that another ,3) physicist, 8dward %itten, has written that Relativity Theory was discovered first by mere accident. +ncidentally, the same %itten, in 9=:C, has provided the most complete -field string theory-. +n the meantime 3uperstring Theory has progressed towards a peculiar form of duality. +n 9=<< a *innish and a 2ritish physicists, Dlaus .ontonen and Aavid live, proposed that there may e(ist a dual &hysics which deals with -solitons- instead of -particles-. +n that &hysics, magnetic monopoles are the elementary units, and particles emerge as solitons, knots in fields that cannot be smoothed out /in our conventional &hysics, magnetic monopoles are solitons of particles1. 8ach particle corresponds to a soliton, and viceversa. They proved that it would not matter which &hysics one chooses to follow: all results would automatically apply to the dual one. +n particular, one could think of solitons are aggregates of 4uarks /as originally done in 9=<J by the Autch physicist 7erard't 0ooft1. Then a theory of solitons can be built on top of a theory of 4uarks, or a theory of 4uarks can be built on top of a theory of solitons. +n 9==> the ,3) physicist )ndrew 3trominger has even found a connection between black holes and strings: if the original mass of the black hole was made of strings, the 0awking radiation /see later1 would ultimately drain the black hole and leave a -thing- of !ero si!e, i.e. a particle. 3ince a particle is ultimately a string, the cycle could theoretically resume: black holes decaying into strings and strings

decaying into black holes. 3uperstring Theory is the only scientific theory of all times that re4uires the universe to have a specific number of dimensions: but why tenF &hysicists like &eter *reund, a Romanian native, and .ichio Kaku have observed that the laws of nature become simpler in higher dimensions. The perceptual system of humans can only grasp three dimensions, but at that level the world looks terribly complicated. The moment we move to a fourth dimension, we can unify phenomena that looked very different. )s we keep moving up to higher and higher dimensions, we can unify more and more theories. This is precisely how 8instein unified .echanics and 8lectromagnetism /by introducing a fourth dimension1, how 4uantum scientists unified electromagnetism with the weak and strong nuclear forces and how particle physicists are now trying to unify these forces with gravity. 3till: why tenF )re there more phenomena around that we still have to discover and that, once unified with the e(isting scientific theories, will yield even more dimensionsF )re these dimensions "ust artifices of the .athematics that has been employed in the calculations, or are they real dimensions that may have been accessible in older timesF )nd why mono#dimensional strings, and not multidimensional ob"ectsF &aul Airac, way back in 9=>2, had thought that the electron could be a bubble, which is a membrane closed in on itself. ne important implication of superstring theory is that the -constants- of nature are fields, and can therefore change in time and in space. The -dilaton- is the field of all fields, that determines the strength of all interactions. )nother important implication is that our universe might not be all that there is. The electron uses only three of the available dimensions /the so called -Airichlet membrane- or -A#brane-1, and our universe may simply be confined to those three dimensions, but the other dimensions might be -filled- with something else. M(theory The problem with superstring theory is that, 4uite simply, there are too many superstring theories /at least five1, each of them perfectly valid. .#theory /originating from an idea of 8dward %itten in 9==C1 is the theory of all possible superstring theories. .#theory can also be viewed as an eleven#dimensional theory of ten#dimensional theories. .#theory does not constrain the universe to be the one we observe: a the C00th power different kinds of universe are technically possible, own laws of nature. The ,3) physicist 5eonard 3usskind actually thinks universes do e(ist: anything that can e(ist, does e(ist. ur universe item in the -megaverse.&uantum #ravity &enrose also agrees that the right approach to the integration of Quantum Theory and Relativity Theory is not to be concerned about the effects of the former on the latter but viceversa. &enrose /like everyone else1 is pu!!led by the two different, and incompatible, 4uantum interpretations of the world. ne is due to 3chroedinger's e4uation, which describes how a wave function evolves in time. This interpretation is deterministic and provides a continuous history of the world. The other is due to the collapse of the wave function in the face of a measurement, which entails determining probabilities of possible outcomes from the s4uared moduli of amplitudes in the wave function /-state#vector reduction-1. This interpretation is probabilistic and provides a discontinuous history of the world, because the system suddenly "umps into a new state. %e can use 3chroedinger's e4uation to determine what is happening at any point in timeB but, the moment we try to actually measure a 4uantity, we must resort to state#vector reduction in order to know what has happened. &enrose postulates that level if abstraction by Theory. 3uch a theory, the numerous infinites predicting a privileged these two incompatible views must be reconciled at a higher a new theory, and such a theory must be based on Relativity which he calls -4uantum gravity-, would also rid &hysics of that plague it today. +t should also be time#asymmetrical, direction in time, "ust like the second law of Thermodynamics staggering to each with its that all those is merely one

does. *inally, in order to preserve free will, it would contain a non#algorithmic element, which means that the future would not be computable from the present. &enrose even believes that Quantum 7ravity will e(plain consciousness. The Trail of Asymmetry 3omehow asymmetry seems to play a protagonist role in the history of our universe and our life. Durrent cosmological models speculate that the four fundamental forces of nature /gravitational, electromagnetic, weak and strong1 arose when symmetry broke down after the very high temperatures of the early universe began to cool down. Today, we live in a universe that is the child of that momentous split. %ithout that -broken symmetry- there would be no electrical force and no nuclear force, and our universe would be vastly impoverished in natural phenomena. 3cientists have also speculated at length about the asymmetry between matter and antimatter: if one is the mirror image of the other and no known physical process shows a preference for either, why is it that in our universe protons and electrons /matter1 overwhelmingly prevails over positrons and antiprotons /antimatter1F .ost physical laws can be reversed in time, at least on paper. 2ut most will not. Time presents another asymmetry, the -arrow of time- which points always in the same direction, no matter what is allowed by .athematics. The universe, history and life all proceed forward and never backwards. &ossibly related to it is the other great asymmetry: entropy. ne can't unscramble an egg. ) lump of sugar which is dissolved in a cup of coffee cannot become a lump of sugar again. 5eft to themselves, buildings collapse, they do not improve. .ost artifacts re4uire periodic maintenance, otherwise they would decay. Aisorder is continuously accumulated. 3ome processes are irreversible. +t turns out that entropy is a key factor in enabling life /and, of course, in ending it1. 5iving organisms maintain themselves far from e4uilibrium and entropy plays a role in it. .oreover, in 9:J: the *rench biologist 5ouis &asteur discovered that aminoacids /which make up proteins which make up living organisms1 e(hibit another singular asymmetry: for every aminoacid there e(ist in nature its mirror image, but life on 8arth uses only one form of the aminoacids /left#handed ones1. &asteur6s mystery is still une(plained /&asteur thought that somehow that -was- the definition of life1. 5ater, biologists would discover that bodies only use right#handed sugars, thereby confirming that homochirality /the property of being single#handed1 is an essential property of life. *inally, an asymmetry presents itself even in the site of thinking itself, in the human brain. The two cerebral hemispheres are rather symmetric in all species e(cept ours. ther mammals do not show preferences for grasping food with one or the other paw. %e do. .ost of us are right#handed and those who are not are left#handed. )symmetry seems to be a fundamental feature of our brain. The left hemisphere is primarily used for language and the interplay between the two hemispheres seems to be important for consciousness. +t may turn out to be a mere coincidence, but the most conscious creatures of our planet have also the most asymmetric brains. %as there also a unified brain at the origin of thinking, whose symmetry broke down later on in the evolutionary pathF A -u..y World .odern physics relies heavily on Quantum .echanics. Quantum .echanics relies heavily on the theory of probabilities. )t the time, probabilities "ust happened to fit well in the model. Quantum .echanics was built on probabilities because the theory of probabilities is what was available in those times. Quantum .echanics was built that way not because $ature is that way, but because the mathematical tools available at the time were that wayB "ust like $ewton used 8uclid's' geometry because that is what 7eometry could provide at the time. 2olt!mann's stochastic theories had showed that the behavior of gases /which are large aggregates of molecules1 could be predicted by a dynamics which ignored the precise behavior of individuals, and took into account only the average behavior. +n retrospect 2olt!mann's influence was enormous on Quantum .echanics. 0is

simplification was tempting: forget about the individual, focus on the population. Quantum .echanics therefore prescribed a -population- approach to $ature: take so many electrons, and some will do something and some will do something else. $o prescription is possible about a single electron. Quantum phenomena specify not what a single particle does, but what a set of particles do. ut of so many particles that hit a target, a few will pass through, a few will bounce back. )nd this can be e(pressed probabilistically. Today, alternatives to probabilities do e(ist. +n particular, *u!!y 5ogic can represent uncertainty in a more natural way /things are not black or white, but both black and white, to some e(tent1. *u!!y 5ogic is largely e4uivalent to &robability Theory, but it differs in that it describes single individuals, not populations. n paper, Quantum .echanics could thus be rewritten with *u!!y 5ogic /instead of probabilities1 without altering any of its conclusions. %hat would change is the interpretation: instead of a theory about -set of individuals- /or populations1 it would become a theory about -fu!!y individuals-. +n a *u!!y 5ogic scenario, a specific particle hitting a potential barrier would both go through and bounce back. To some e(tent. +t is not that out of a population some individuals do this and some individuals do thatB a specific individual is both doing this and doing that. The world would still behave in a rather bi!arre way, but somehow we would be able to make statements about individuals. 0owever, this approach would allow &hysics to return to a science of individual ob"ects, not of populations of ob"ects. The uncertainty principle could change 4uite dramatically: instead of stating that we can never observe all the parameters of a particle with absolute certainty, it could state that we can observe all the parameters of a particle with absolute certainty, but certainty not being e(act. %hen + say that mine is a good book, + am being very certain. + am not being e(act /what does -good- meanF 0ow good is goodF 8tc1. The fact that a single particle can be in different, mutually e(clusive states at the same time has broad implications on the way our mind categori!es -mutually e(clusivestatesB not on what $ature actually does. $ature never constrained things to be either small or big. ur mind did. )ny scientific theory we develop is first and foremost a -discourse- on $atureB i.e., a representation in our mind of what $ature is and does. 3ome of the limits we see in $ature /i.e., the fact that something is either big or small1 are limits of our mindB and conversely some of the perfection that we see in $ature is the perfection of our mind /i.e., the fact that there is a color white or something is cold or a stone is round, while in $ature no ob"ect is fully white, cold or round1. *u!!y 5ogic is probably a better compromise between our mind and $ature, because it allows us to e(press the fact that things are not "ust !ero or one, white or black, cold or warm, round or s4uareB they are -in between-, both white and black, both cold and warm, both... Time: When/ n closer inspection, the main sub"ect of Thermodynamics, Relativity and Quantum theories may well be Time. .ost of the bi!arre implications of those theories are things that either happen -in time- or are caused by Time. 2olt!mann interpreted the second law of Thermodynamics /that entropy can never decrease1 as basically a definition of time, and, de facto, an unmasking of -time- as an illusion of being alive in a particular time and place. 2olt!mann reasoned that the illusion of time is due to the processes of change that we observe. Those processes /especially the most visible ones, such as decay1 are driven by the second law of Thermodynamics, which he had proved to be a statistical law of transition from less probable states to more probable states. Thus a living being -feels- the flow of time only because it lives in a world that is transitioning from a less probable state to a more probable state. +f life is possible in states of absolute e4uilibrium, then those living beings would not perceive any flow of time. Relativity turned Time into one of several dimensions, mildly different from the others but basically very similar to the others. This clearly contrasts with our perception of Time as being utterly distinct from space. 0awking, for e(ample, thinks that originally Time was "ust a fourth spatial dimension, then gradually turned into a different type of dimension and, at the 2ig 2ang, it became Time as we know it today. The mathematician 0ermann 2ondi has argued that the roles of Time are utterly

different in a deterministic and in a non#deterministic universe. %hereas in a deterministic universe, Time is a mere coordinate, in a universe characteri!ed by indeterminacy, such as one governed by Quantum Theory, the passage of time transforms probabilities into actualities, possibility into reality. +f Time did not flow, nothing would ever be. Things would be trapped in the limbo of wave functions. The )ustralian physicist &aul meaningless in the conte(t of 4uantum state of the universe have e(isted before the 2ig accident. Time: What/ The sub"ect of Time has pu!!led and fascinated philosophers since the dawn of consciousness. %hat is Time made ofF %hat is the matter of TimeF +s Time a human inventionF There is no doubt that physical Time does not reflect psychological Time. Time, as we know it, is sub"ective and relative. There is a feeling to the flow of time that no e4uation of &hysics can reproduce. 3omehow, the riddle of Time reminds us of the riddle of consciousness: we know what it is, we can feel it very clearly, but we cannot e(press it, and we don't know where it comes from. +f you think that there is absolute time, think again. Ees, all clocks display the same time. 2ut what makes you think that what they display is TimeF )s an e(ample, let's go back to the age when clocks had not been invented yet: time was defined by the motion of the sun. &eople knew that a day is a day because the sun takes a day to turn around the 8arth /that's what they thought1. )nd a day was a day everywhere on the 8arth, even among people who had never communicated to each other. +s that absolute TimeF %hat would happen if the 3un all of a sudden slowed downF &eople all over the planet would still think that a day is a day. Their unit of measurement would be different. They would be measuring something else, without knowing it. %hat would happen today if a galactic wave made all clocks slow downF %e would still think that ten seconds are ten seconds. 2ut the -new- ten seconds would not be what ten seconds used to be. 3o clocks do not measure Time, they "ust measure themselves. %e take a motion that is the same all over the planet and use that to define something that we never really found in nature: Time. )t the least, we can say that measurement of Time is not innate: we need a clock to tell -how long it took-. ,nfortunately, human civili!ation is founded on Time. 3cience, the )rts and technology are based on the concept of Time. %hat we have is two flavors of Time: psychological time, which is a concrete 4uantity that the brain creates and associates to each memoryB and physical time, an abstract 4uantity that is used in scientific formulas for the purpose of describing properties of matter. The latter was largely an invention of +saac $ewton, who built his laws of nature on the assumption of an absolute, universal, linear, continuous Time. &ast is past for everybody, and future is future for everybody. 8instein e(plained that somebody's past may be somebody else's present or even future, and thereby proved that time is not absolute and not universal. )ny partitioning of space#time into space and time is perfectly legal. The only re4uirement on the time component is that events can be ordered in time. Time is pretty much reduced to a convention to order events, and one way of ordering is as good as any other way. +n the meantime, the second law of Thermodynamics had for the first time established formally the arrow of time that we are very familiar with, the flowing from past to future and not viceversa. Time: Where/ nce the very essence of Time had been doubted, scientists began to doubt even its e(istence. The 2ritish physicists )rthur .ilne and &aul Airac are two of the scientists who have wondered if the shaky character of modern &hysics may be due to the fact that there are two different types of time and that we tend to confuse them. 2oth maintained Aavies claims e(actly the opposite: Time is rather a 4uantum model of the universe, because a general has no well#defined time. %ith 0awking, Time may not 2ang, and may have originated afterwards by mere

that atomic time and astronomical time may be out of sync. +n other words, the speeds of planets slowly change all the time in terms of atomic time, although they remain the same in terms of astronomical time. ) day on 8arth is a day regardless of the speed of the 8arth, but it may be lasting less and less according to an atomic clock. +n particular, the age of the universe may have been vastly e(aggerated because it is measured in astronomical time and astronomical processes were greatly speeded up in the early stages of the universe. $ot to leave anything untried, the ,3) physicist Richard *eynman even argued in favor of matter traveling backwards in time: an electron that turns into a positron /its anti#particle1 is simply an electron that turns back in time. 0is teacher ?ohn %heeler even argued that maybe all electrons are "ust one electron, bouncing back and forth in timeB and so all other particles. There is only one instance of each particle. That would also e(plain why all electrons are identical: they are all the same particle. 8instein proved that Time is not absolute and said something about how we e(perience time in different ways depending on how we are moving. 2ut he hardly e(plained what Time is. )nd nobody else ever has. The 2ritish physicist ?ulian 2arbour believes that Time does not e(ist, and that most of &hysics' troubles arise from assuming that it does e(ist. %e have no evidence of the past other than our memory of it. %e have no evidence of the future other than our belief in it. 2arbour believes that it is all an illusion: there is no motion and no change. +nstants and periods do not e(ist. %hat e(ists is only -time capsules-, which are static containers of -records-. Those records fool us into believing that things change and events happen. There e(ists a -configuration space- that contains all possible instants, all possible -nows-. This is -&latonia.- %e e(perience a set of these instants, i.e. a subset of &latonia. 2arbour is inspired by 5eibni!' theory that the universe is not a container of ob"ects, but a collection of entities that are both space and matter. The universe does not contain things, it -is- things. 2arbour does not answer the best part of the pu!!le: who is deciding which -path- we follow in &latoniaF %ho is ordering the instants of &latoniaF 2arbour simply points to 4uantum mechanics, that prescribes we should always be in the -instant- that is most likely. %e e(perience an ordered flow of events because that is what we were designed for: to interpret the se4uence of most likely instants as an ordered flow of events. 2arbour also offers a solution to integrating relativity and 4uantum mechanics: remove time from a 4uantum description of gravity. Remove time from the e4uations. +n his opinion, time is precisely the reason why it has proved so difficult to integrate relativity and 4uantum theories. Time: Why/ +n classical and 4uantum &hysics, e4uations are invariant with respect to time inversion. *uture and past are e4uivalent. Time is only slightly different from space. Time is therefore a mere geometrical parameter. 2ecause of this, &hysics offers a static view of the universe. The second law of Thermodynamics made official what was already obvious: that many phenomena are not reversible, that time is not merely a coordinate in space#time. +n the 9=<0's &rigogine showed, using 2olt!mann's theorem and thermodynamic concepts, that irreversibility is the manifestation at macroscopic level of randomness at microscopic level. &rigogine then attempted a microscopic formulation of the irreversibility of laws of nature. 0e associates macroscopic entropy with a microscopic entropy operator. Time too becomes an operator, no longer a mere parameter. nce both time and entropy have become operators, &hysics has been turned upside down: instead of having a basic theory e(pressed in terms of wave functions /i.e., of individual tra"ectories1, he obtains a basic theory in terms of distribution functions /i.e., bundles of tra"ectories1. Time itself depends on the distribution and therefore becomes itself a stochastic 4uantity, "ust like entropy, an average over individual times. )s a conse4uence, "ust like entropy cannot be reversed, time cannot: the future cannot be predicted from the past anymore. Traditionally, physical space is geometrical, biological space /the space in which biological form develops1 is functional /for e(ample, physical time is invariant with respect to rotations and translations, biological space is not1. &rigogine's Time

aims at unifying physical and biological phenomena. )lac$ +oles and Wormholes: #ate%ays to "ther Universes and Time Travel 2y definition, all information about the matter that fell into a black hole is lost forever: a black hole may have been generated by any initial configuration of matter, but there is no record of which one it was. +n 9=<J the 2ritish physicist 3tephen 0awking proved that black holes evaporate, therefore information is not only trapped inside the black hole: it truly disappears forever. /The time it will take for a black hole to evaporate is proportional to the cube of its mass1. 0awking6s study was particularly relevant because it was the first ma"or attempt to integrate Relativity, Quantum Theory and Thermodynamics. The disappearance of matter, energy and information in a black hole has pu!!led physicists since the beginning, as it obviously violates the strongest principle of conservation that our &hysics is built upon. +t also highlights the contradictions between Quantum Theory and Relativity Theory: the former guarantees that information is never lost, the latter predicts that it will be lost in a black hole. 8instein himself reali!ed that black holes implied the e(istence of a -bridgebetween our universe and a mirror universe which is hidden inside the black hole, and in which Time runs backwards. +t was the )ustrian mathematician Kurt 7oedel, the same individual who had "ust single#handedly shattered the edifice of .athematics, who, in 9=J=, pointed out how 8instein's e4uations applied to a rotating universe implied that space#time can curve to the point that a particle will return to a previous point in timeB in other words, -wormholes- e(ist connecting two different points in time of the same universe. +n the 9=C0s, ?ohn %heeler speculated that two points in space can be connected through several different routes, because of the e(istence of spatial wormholes. 3uch wormholes could act like shortcuts, so that travel between the two points can occur even faster than the speed of light. The $ew Mealand mathematician Roy Kerr in 9=>; and the ,3) physicist *rank Tipler in 9=<J found other situations in which wormholes were admissible. +n the ,.3., Kip Thorne even designed a time machine capable of e(ploiting such time wormholes. +n the ,.K., 3tephen 0awking came up with the idea of wormholes connecting different universes altogether. 0awking's wave function allows the e(istence of an infinite set of universes, some more likely than others, and wormholes the si!e of the &lanck length connect all these parallel universes with each other. The +istory of the Universe ne of the conse4uences of 7eneral Relativity is that it prescribes the evolution of the universe. ) few possible futures are possible, depending on how some parameters are chosen. These cosmological models regard the universe as one system with macroscopic 4uantities. 3ince the discovery that the universe is e(panding in all directions /by the 2ritish physicist 8dwin 0ubble in 9=2=1, the most popular models have been the ones that predict e(pansion of space#time from an initial singularity, the -2ig 2ang- /first speculated by the 2elgian physicist 7eorges 5emaitre in 9=2<1. 3ince a singularity is infinitely small, any cosmological model that wants to start from the very beginning must combine Relativity and Quantum &hysics. The story usually starts with an infinitely small universe /Roger &enrose and 3tephen 0awking have proved that Relativity implies this1, in which 4uantum fluctuations of the type predicted by 0eisenberg's principle are not negligible, especially when the universe was a si!e smaller than the &lanck length. The fluctuations actually -created- the universe /space, time and matter1 in a -2ig 2ang-. Time slowly turned into space#time, giving rise to spatial dimensions. 3pace# time started e(panding, the e(pansion that we still observe today. +n a sense, there was no beginning of the universe: the -birth- of the universe is an illusion. There is no need to create the universe, because its creation is part of the universe itself. There is no real origin. The universe is self#contained, it does not re4uire anything e(ternal to start it. Then the universe e(panded. +f the mass of the universe is big enough /and this is still being debated, but most cosmologists seem to believe so1, then at some point the e(pansion will peak and it will reverse: the universe will contract all the way back into another singularity /the -2ig Drunch-1. )t that point the same initial argument holds, which is likely to start another universe. *or e(ample, ?ohn %heeler claims that the universe oscillates back and forth between a 2ig 2ang and a 2ig Drunch. 8ach time the universe re#starts with randomly assigned values of the

physical constants and laws. 2oth the beginning and the end are singularities, which means that the laws of &hysics break down. The new universe can have no memory of the old universe, e(cept for a higher entropy /assuming that at least that law is conserved through all these singularities1, which implies a longer cycle of e(pansion and contraction /according to Richard Tolman's calculations1. 3ome scientists believe that they can remove the singularities. +n particular, 0awking has proposed a model in which Time is unbounded but finite, and therefore it is not created in the 2ig 2ang even if the universe today has a finite age. /)ccording to 8instein, space is also finite yet unbounded1. +n his model, Time emerges gradually from space and there is no first moment. The real conundrum for cosmologists, however, is to find the missing matter: most of the matter re4uired for the universe to be the way it is /to account for the gravity that holds together the gala(ies the way they are held together1 has never been observed. &hysicists are searching for -dark matter- /perhaps 2CP of the mass#energy of the universe1 that does not interact with ordinary matter, does not emit and does not reflect light /but whose gravitational effect has been inferred by observing the motion of gala(ies1, as well as for -dark energy- /energy that is not associated with particles1, that could account for <9P of the mass#energy of the universe /the mass# energy needed to account for the acceleration of the e(pansion of the universe that was discovered in 9==: by the ,3) physicist )dam Riess1. %hatever the reason, more than =0P of the mass#energy of the universe has not been found. Today6s &hysics is really a scientific theory about the mere CP of mass#energy that we can account for. $ote that 8instein6s cosmological constant would play the same -repulsive- role as the -dark energy-. The Creation "f Information The universe before the 2ig 2ang was in a state of e4uilibrium. That means minimal information and minimal order. That means ma(imum entropy. Today it is in a state of non#e4uilibrium, which implies that entropy declined, which contradicts the second law of Thermodynamics. The solution of the apparent parado( is gravitation: gravitation causes the creation of order /and therefore information1. 7ravitation also solves the other pu!!le: where did the initial energy come fromF +t turns out that gravitation behaves like negative energy that e4uals the positive energy that has created all matter: the two together yield !ero energy. There is no need for an initial source of energy to start the 2ig 2ang. ne oddity still remains: the effect of creating the universe does have a visible effect, and that is the many ordered structures that we see in the sky. +n other words, the creation of the universe has created an entropy gap. +nformation has been created that was not there. %here did it come fromF The End of Entropy Gery few people are willing to take the second law of Thermodynamics as a primitive law of the universe. 8(plicitly or implicitly, we don't seem happy with this law that states an ine4uality. 3omehow it must be a side effect of some other phenomenon. Thomas 7old /among others1 believes that the second law follows the direction of the universe: entropy increases when the universe e(pands, it decreases when the universe contracts /or, e4uivalently, when Time flows backwards1. The second law would simply be an effect of the e(pansion or contraction. +n that case the universe might be cyclic. Roger &enrose has also investigated the mystery of entropy. ) gravitational effect results in two dual phenomena: a change in shape and a change in volume of space# time. Donse4uently, &enrose separates the curvature tensor in two components: the Ricci tensor /named after the +talian mathematician 7regorio Ricci who founded the theory of tensors1 and the %eyl tensor /named after the 7erman mathematician 0ermann %eyl, a close associate of 8instein's1. The %eyl tensor measures the change in shape, and, in a sense, the gravitational field, whereas the Ricci tensor measures the change in volume, and, in a sense, the density of matter. The %eyl tensor measures a -tidal- effect and the Ricci tensor measures an effect of volume reduction. The Ricci tensor is !ero in empty space, it is infinite in a singularity. The %eyl tensor is !ero in the initial singularity of the 2ig 2ang, but infinite at the final singularity of the 2ig Drunch. &enrose has showed that entropy follows the %eyl

tensor and the %eyl tensor may hide the pu!!ling origin of the second law of Thermodynamics. The Resurrection of Information The curvature in pro(imity of a black hole is infinite: all ob"ects are doomed. There is a distance from the black hole which is the last point where an ob"ect can still escape the fall: the set of those points defines the hori!on of the black hole. +n 9=<J 3tephen 0awking discovered that black holes may evaporate and eventually vanish. The -0awking radiation- that remains has lost all information about the black hole. This violates the assumption of determinism in the evolution of the universe, i.e. that, if we know the present, we can always derive the past, because the present universe contains all information about how the past universe was. nly two options have been found to allow for the conservation of information. The first one is to allow for information to travel faster than light. That would allow it to escape the black hole. 2ut it would violate the law of causality /that nothing can travel faster than light1. The second option is that a vanishing black hole may leave behind a remnant the si!e of the &lanck length. )ndrew 3trominger has argued for the latter option. This option calls for an infinite number of new particles, as each black hole is different and would decay into a different particle. 3trominger believes that such particles are e(treme warps of space#time, -cornucopions-, that can store huge amount of information even if they appear very small to an outside observer and their information would not be accessible. )fter all, in 9=<2 the +sraeli physicist ?acob 2ekenstein proved that the entropy of a black hole is proportional to its surface /or, better, the surface area of its event hori!on1, which means that entropy should decrease constantly during the collapse of the black hole, which means that information must somehow increase, and not disappear. $ote that a conse4uence of 2ekenstein6s theorem is that a black hole can hold only a finite amount of information, because its hori!on is finite, and therefore its entropy is finite, and its entropy is a measure of the missing information. +n fact 2ekenstein proved that there is also a ma(imum amount of information that can possibly be hidden into a black hole, the -2ekenstein bound-. Inflation: )efore Time %hat was there before the 2ig 2ang created our universeF ) widely held -cosmological principle- re4uires that the universe has no center, no special place. That means that the 2ig 2ang did not occur in a specific point of the universe: it occurred everywhere in the universe, it was the universe. The universe was a point and the 2ig 2ang is merely the moment when it began to e(pand. 2y cosmological standards, the 2ig 2ang is still occurring now, in every single point of the universe. 3pace is being created as the universe e(pands. There was -nothing- before the 2ig 2ang and there is -nothing- beyond the universe. The 2ig 2ang creates the universe which is everything that e(ists. This -inflationary- model /proposed by )lan 7uth in 9=:9 and e(panding on the 9=J: theory of cosmogenesis by the ,krainian physicist 7eorge 7amow who, in turn, developed a 9=2< idea by the 2elgian physicist 7eorges 5emaitre1 assumes that the universe began its life in a vacuum#like state containing some homogeneous classical fields but no particles /no matter as we know it1. Then it e(panded e(ponentially /that6s the -inflation-1 and the vacuum#like state decayed into particles. 7uth's model is based on the e(istence of scalar fields. ) scalar field is one caused by a 4uantity which is purely numerical, such as temperature or household income. 7ravitational and electromagnetic fields, in contrast, also point in a specific direction, and are therefore -vector- fields. Gector fields are perceived because they e(ert some force on the things they touch, but scalar fields are virtually invisible. $onetheless, scalar fields play, for e(ample, a fundamental role in unified theories of the weak, strong and electromagnetic interactions. 5ike all fields, scalar fields carry energy. 7uth assumed that in the early stage of the universe a scalar field provided a lot of energy to empty space. This energy produced the e(pansion, which for a while occurred at a constant rate, thereby causing an e(ponential growth. 7uth's model solves a few historical problems of cosmology: the -primordial monopole-

problem /grand unified theories predict the e(istence of magnetic monopoles1B the -flatness- problem /why the universe is so flat, i.e. why the curvature of space is so small1B and the -hori!on- problem /how causally disconnected regions of the universe can have started their e(pansion simultaneously1. +t does not account for dark matter and energy. %hile everybody agrees that the universe is e(panding, not everybody agrees on what that means. +n the 4uest for an e(planation of dark matter and dark energy, the 2ritish physicist 7eoffrey 2urbidge, the 2ritish physicist *red 0oyle and the +ndian physicist ?ayant $arlikar have developed the -Quasi 3teady 3tate Dosmology- /reprised in the -Dyclic ,niverse Theory- by the ,3) physicist &aul 3teinhardt and the 2ritish physicist $eil Turok1, according to which there is no -2ig 2ang- to begin with, and there will be no -2ig Drunh- to end with. 3pace and time e(isted ever since and will e(ist forever. There is no beginning nor end. The evolution of the universe is due to a series of -bangs- /e(plosive e(pansions1 and -crunches- /contractions1. The 2ig 2ang that we observe today with the most powerful detectors of microwave radiations /first detected in 9=>J1 is simply one of the many e(pansions following one of the many contractions. 8ach phase may last a trillion years, and therefore be undetected by human instruments. 2urbidge doubts black holes, 4uasars and the cosmic radiation. 0atural ,election for Universes Refining 7uth6s vision, in the 9=:0s the Russian physicist )ndrei 5inde came up with a -chaotic inflationary- model. 5inde reali!ed that 7uth's inflation must litter the universe with bubbles, each one e(panding like an independent universe, with its own 2ig 2ang and its own 2ig Drunch. 5inde's model is -chaotic- because it assumes a chaotic initial distribution of the scalar field: instead of being uniform, the original scalar field was fluctuating wildly from point to point. +nflation therefore began in different points at different times and at different rates. Regions of the universe that are isolated by a length greater than the inverse of the 0ubble constant cannot be in any relation with the rest of the universe. They e(pand independently. )ny such region is a separate mini#universe. +n any such region the scalar field can give rise to new mini#universes. ne mini#universe produces many others. +t is no longer necessary to assume that there is a -first- universe. 8ach mini#universe is very homogeneous, but on a much larger scale the universe is e(tremely inhomogeneous. +t is not necessary to assume that the universe was initially homogeneous or that all its causally disconnected parts started their e(pansion simultaneously. ne region of the inflationary universe gives rise to a multitude of new inflationary regions. +n different regions, the properties of space#time and elementary particles may be utterly different. $atural laws may be different in each mini#universe. The evolution of the universe as a whole has no end, and may have no beginning. The -evolution- of mini#universes resembles that of any animal species. 8ach mini# universe leads to a number of mini#universes that are mutated versions of it, as their scalar fields is not necessarily the same. 8ach mini#universe is different, and mini#universes could be classified in a strict hierarchy based on a parent#child relationship. This mechanism sort of -reproduces- mini#universes in a fashion similar to how life reproduces itself through a selection process. The combinatorial e(plosion of mini# universes can be viewed as meant to create mini#universes that are ever better at -surviving-. 8ach mini#universe -inherits- the laws of its parent mini#universe to an e(tent, "ust like living beings inherit behavior to an e(tent through genetic code. ) -genome- is passed from parent universe to child universe, and that -genome- contains instructions about which laws should apply. 8ach genome only prescribes a piece of the set of laws governing the behavior of a universe. 3ome are random. 3ome are generated by -adaptation- to the environment of many coe(isting universes. )t the same time, e(pansion means that information is being propagated like in a neural network through the hierarchy of e(panding universes. +t may also be that a universe is not born "ust out of a parent universe, but of many

parent universes. ) region of the universe e(pands because of the effect of many other regions. This is similar to what happens with neural networks. %ith a little imagination, interpreted in this way: the view of the chaotic inflationary theory can be

The e(pansion of a new region may be determined by many regions, not "ust one. 8ach region somehow inherits its laws from those regions. The laws in a region may change all the time, especially at the beginning. The laws determine how successful a region is in its e(pansion. Aifferent e(pansion regions with different laws can communicate. They are likely to compete for survival. )daptation takes a toll on e(pansion regions. Regions die. 2ranches of regions become e(tinct.

bviously, this scenario bears strong similarities with biological scenarios. )nother theory that presupposes evolving universes is the one advanced in 9==2 by the ,3) astrophysicist 5ee 3molin. 0e thinks that black holes are the birthplaces of offspring universes. The constants and laws of &hysics are randomly changed in the new universes, "ust like the genome of offspring is randomly mutated. 2lack holes guarantee reproduction and inheritance. ,niverses that do not give rise to black holes cannot reproduce: there is therefore also a kind of -natural selection- among 3molin's universes. +n this scenario, our universe's delicate balance of constants and forces is the result of evolution. oop &uantum #ravity The ultimate goal of 5oop Quantum 7ravity /5Q71 is still the -4uanti!ation- of general relativity, but the way it approaches the problem is very different: it is purely geometric. +n 9=<9 Roger &enrose introduced the notion of a -spin network- /derived from 5ouis Kauffman's -knot theory-1 in an attempt to e(plain the structure of three#dimensional space. ) spin network is a graph whose edges are labeled by integers, corresponding to the possible values of the angular momentum. &enrose sensed that these could be the simplest geometric structures to describe space. +n 9=<> the Danadian physicist 2ill ,nruh /-$otes on black#hole evaporation-, 9=<>1 discovered that an accelerating observer must measure a temperature /a black#body radiation1 where an inertial observer observes none, the temperature being proportional to the acceleration. This means that the very concept of -vacuumdepends on the state of motion of the observer: an accelerating observer will never observe any vacuum. /This also proved that 8instein's principle of e4uivalence was slightly incorrect: a constantly#accelerating observer and an observer at rest in a gravitational field are not e4uivalent, as the former would observe a temperature and the latter would not1. 8very accelerating observer has a hidden region /all the photons that cannot reach her because she keeps accelerating, getting closer and closer to the speed of light1 and a hori!on /the boundary of her hidden region1 ?akob 2ekenstein6s theorem implies that every hori!on separating an observer from her hidden region has an entropy. That entropy turns out to be proportional to the information that is hidden or trapped in the hidden region /the missing information1. )ccording to 2ekenstein's theorem, the entropy of the radiation that the accelerated observer e(periences is proportional to the area of her hori!on. 5ee 3molin put ,nruh and 2ekenstein together and reali!ed something that is built into any theory of -4uantum gravity- /into any 4uanti!ation of relativity1: the volumes of regions in space must come in discrete units, "ust like energy comes in discrete units. +f energy comes in discrete units, then space must come in discrete units. ?ust like matter is made of discrete particles, space itself must be made of discrete units. ) volume cannot be divided forever: there is an elementary unit of volume. 3molin used 2ekenstein6s and ,nruh6s theorems to prove that spacetime must be discrete. +f spacetime were continuous, then a volume of spacetime /no matter how small1 would contain an infinite amount of information. 2ut for any volume of spacetime an accelerating observer would observe a finite entropy /finite because it

is proportional to the surface of the volume1 and therefore a finite amount of missing information. The amount of information is finite because the surface of the hori!on is finite and therefore entropy is finite. The amount of information within a volume of spacetime must be finite, therefore spacetime cannot be continuous. 3pacetime must have an -atomic- structure "ust like matter has an atomic structure. /This conclusion had been reached independently by ?acob 2ekenstein in his studies on the thermodynamics of black holes1. Kenneth %ilson had first hypothesi!ed in the 9=<0s that space was a discrete lattice. %hat 3molin did was to make %ilson's discrete lattice also change dynamically, able to evolve in time, as 7eneral Relativity re4uires. +n his formulations the inter# relationships among %ilson's structures /the -loops-1 define space itself. 3molin used the work of two +ndian scientists. )bhay )shtekar came up with the -loop#space model-, based on the 9=:C theory of )mitaba 3en, that splits time and space into two distinct entities sub"ect to 4uantum uncertainty /analogous to momentum and position1. The solutions of 8instein's e4uations would then be 4uantum states that resemble loops. 3molin's theory was simply a theory of loops and how they interact and combine. /The ,ruguayan physicist Rodolfo 7ambini had independently reached similar conclusions1. 5oop states turned out to be best represented by &enrose's spin networks. The lines of a spin network carry units of area. The structure of spin networks generates space. The space that we e(perience is continuous. 3pin networks, instead, are discrete. They are graphs with edges labeled by spins /that come in multiples of 0.C1 and with three edges meeting at each verte(. )s these spin networks become larger and more comple(, they -yield- our ordinary, continuous, smooth ;#dimensional space. ) spin network, therefore, -creates- geometry. +t is not that a spin network yields a metrics /the metrics being what defines the geometry of a region of space1 but that each verte( of a spin network creates the volume of a region of space. )n evolving spin network /a -spin foam-1 is basically a discrete version of 8instein's spacetime. 3pin#foams are four#dimensional graphs that describe the 4uantum states of spacetime, "ust like spin networks describe the 4uantum states of space. 3pin foams describe the 4uantum geometry of spacetime /not "ust space1. ) spin foam may be viewed as a 4uantum history. 3pacetime emerges as a 4uantum superposition of spin foams /topologically speaking, it is a two#dimensional -comple(-1. The way spin networks combine to form space is not clear, as there seems to be no -natural law- /no e4uivalent of gravitation or of electromagnetism1 at work. 3pin networks -spontaneously- combine to form space. The formation of space resembles the Aarwinian process that creates order via natural selection of self#organi!ing systems. 3pace appears to be the result of spontaneous processes of self#organi!ation a@ la 3tuart Kauffman. The hypothesis that space is discrete also helps remove some undesired -infinitesfrom Quantum Theory. *or e(ample, charged particles interact with one another via electromagnetic fields. The electromagnetic field gets stronger as one gets closer to the particle. 2ut a particle has no si!e, so one can get infinitely closer to it, which means that the field will get infinitely strong. +f space is discrete instead of continuous, the parado( is solved: there is a finite limit to how close to a particle one can get. 3pin networks thus solve -4uantum gravity- in three dimensions. 3pin networks describe the 4uantum geometry of space. +n order to introduce the /fourth1 temporal dimension, a concept of -history- has been added by some researchers. +n 2009 the 7reek physicist *otini .arkopoulou showed that spin networks evolve in time in discrete steps: at every step, the change of each verte( of the spin network only depends on its immediate neighbors. This is reminiscent of Gon $eumann's cellular automata and of algorithm#based thinking, as opposed to the traditional formula#oriented thinking of &hysics. *otini .arkopoulou introduced causality in 5oop Quantum 7ravity. +n her view, time is not an illusion, "ust an appro(imation. 3he compares it to the river that seems to flow in a smooth way even though the motion of its water molecules is chaotic. Dausality does e(ist at a very fundamental level, although it may not be the one that we perceive in our daily life. The idea of 5oop Quantum 7ravity was further e(panded by Dausal Aynamical

Triangulation, a theory introduced in the 9==0s by Renate 5oll /Autch1, ?an )mb"orn /Aanish1 and ?er!y ?urkiewic! /&olish1 that constructs spacetime from elementary structures called -four#simple(es-. ) four#simple( is the four#dimensional e4uivalent of a tetrahedron. Eet another approach to 4uantum gravity is purely mathematical. *or e(ample, *otini .arkopoulou /-The +nternal Aescription of a Dausal 3et # %hat the ,niverse 5ooks 5ike from the +nside-, 9===1 noticed similarities between the -categories- used by 7eneral Relativity and those used by Quantum Theory. These have little in common with the traditional category of &hysics whose ob"ects are sets and whose morphisms are functions. +n her view Quantum Theory is better understood as a theory of spacetime. Euclidean &uantum #ravity -8uclidean Quantum 7ravity- is a term that refers to the idea that space and time are treated as e4uals, and that spacetime at any point in time is the superposition of all the possible shapes of spacetime. This model is wildly unstable. 0owever, in 9==: the Aanish physicist ?an )mb"Qrn and the 7erman physicist Renate 5oll /-$on# perturbative 5orent!ian Quantum 7ravity, Dausality and Topology Dhange-, 9==:1 have removed the -8uclidean- clause and introduced the time arrow in the building blocks /or -simplices-1 of spacetime. +n that case the building blocks tend to assemble themselves in the kind of spacetime that we observe /notably, the four dimensions1. 2asically, a four#dimensional spacetime emerges spontaneously through a process of self#organi!ation similar to the one that yields crystals and many biological systems. The catch is that all building blocks /simplices1 must share the same arrow of time /i.e., causality must be encoded at the smallest level of organi!ation1. The +olo!raphic Principle +nspired by the fact that the entropy of a black hole is proportional to its surface and believing that the &lanck length is one side of an area that can hold only one bit of information, in 9==; 7erard't 0ooft generali!ed those ideas and proposed that the informational content of a region of space can always be e4uivalently e(pressed by a theory that lives on the boundary of that region /the so called -holographic principle-1. +n 9==< )rgentine physicist ?uan .aldacena reali!ed that one could represent a universe described by superstring theory functioning in an anti#Ae3itter spacetime /a negatively curved spacetime1 with a 4uantum field theory operating on the boundary of that spacetime. )nd viceversa. +n other words, one could imagine a two#dimensional universe with no gravity that e(ists on the boundary of a three#dimensional universe with gravity. The two universes are e4uivalent. The three#dimensional universe which we perceive might instead be encoded on a two#dimensional surface, like a hologram. ,3) physicist 5isa Randall believes that particles and gravity live in different -membranes- /regions of multi#dimensional spaces1: particles live in one three# dimensional membrane, while gravity lives in a different membrane. 2oth membranes are part of a five#dimensional spacetime whose geometry is an anti#Ae3itter one. 7ravity can travel to our membrane, but it arrives considerably weakened, and that is why it is much weaker than the other forces. #ravity As The 1acuum The striking difference between the gravitational force and the other three forces is that the gravitational force is much weaker. 7ravitational force operates among -bodies- /e.g., comple( aggregates of interacting particles1, but does not seem to have any effect on interactions between elementary particles. The effects of the gravitational force are not considered in the 3tandard .odel because they are assumed to be negligible among subatomic particles, but, of course, the other rational e(planation would be that... there are no such effects on subatomic particles: based on empirical evidence, one could assume that gravitation does not operate at all among elementary particles but only among bodies made of many interacting particles. &hysicists had known for a long time that there is a superficial similarity between 8instein's e4uation of how the momentum#energy tensor affects the curvature of space# time and .a(well's e4uation of the electromagnetic field, but the connection between gravitation and electromagnetism was made only in 9=J:, and it had to do with the vacuum.

+n 9=;0, &aul Airac speculated that, as a conse4uence of 0eisenberg's uncertainty principle, the all#pervading vacuum must actually be filled with particles that continuously appear and disappear in a random way. They live very short lives /limited by 0eisenberg's principle1, but the total effect of their brief e(istence is a fluctuation of energy in the vacuum. Thus the -vacuum- is not empty at all, and it actually generates some energy. +n 9=J:, 0endrik Dasimir speculated that the activity of the vacuum must translate into energy and thus a force, the -Dasimir effect-, that is due solely to the vacuum itself. The Dasimir effect turns out to be inversely proportional to the fourth power of the distance. The way to create the vacuum is to lower the temperature to the absolute !ero: this gets rid of any radiation. The energy produced by the vacuum is thus called the -!ero#point energy-. *or e(ample, helium near the absolute !ero does not free!e, because the vacuum -warms it up- with its !ero#point energy. +n 9=>:, Russian physicist )ndrei 3akharov proposed a simple e(planation to these -oddities-: that gravitation might be not a fundamental interaction but a by#product of the electromagnetic interaction, precisely an electromagnetic phenomenon induced by the presence of matter in the 4uantum vacuum /the 4uantum field that is present even in -empty- space1. Thus, according to 3akharov, matter is not "ust -there- but is -in- the 4uantum vacuum, and therefore interacts with it, causing some kind of 4uantum#fluctuation energy. That fluctuation is gravitation. +n a sense, 3akharov moved to Quantum Theory the same ob"ection that .ach had moved to $ewton's &hysics: you can't assume that a body is isolated, because a body is always -interacting- with something. 8(cept that 3akharov updated this idea to the terminology of Quantum Theory. ) body, any body, is immersed in 4uantum fields, and thus interacts with them. ne such field is the 4uantum vacuum. 3akharov thought that this was not negligible at all, in fact that it was the origin of the gravitational interaction itself. +n 9=:=, the ,3) physicist 0arold &uthoff proposed that a body's inertia /as e(pressed by $ewton's e4uation -*Hma-1 is due, as .ach speculated, to the distribution of matter in the universe, and, more precisely, to the electromagnetic interaction that arises from 4uantum fluctuations of the !ero#point field in accelerated frames. 2asically, a particle's inertia is a function of the particle's interaction with the !ero#point field. +nertia is resistance to acceleration: &uthoff showed that the resistance which defines the inertia of a particle is, ultimately, electromagnetic resistance caused by the !ero#point field on the particle. .atter /made of leptons and 4uarks1 continuously interacts with the !ero#point field, and this interaction yields a force /the -resistance- to motion1 whenever acceleration takes place. +nertia is due to the distortion of the !ero#point field under acceleration. $ewton's e4uation -*Hma- is merely an effect of !ero#point fluctuations in an accelerated reference frame. &uthoff has, de facto, offered the first rational e(planation of why force and acceleration are relatedB and has also given a definition of what -mass- is /$ewton introduced it as a primitive property of matter1. Technically, inertia is due to the high fre4uencies of the distortion of the !ero#point spectrum, whereas gravity is due to its low fre4uencies. $ewton and .ach measured inertia against a reference frame. &uthoff is using the !ero#point field as the reference frame, and is claiming that inertia originates from the reference frame itself. The -gravitational field- is the set of all electromagnetic fields generated by all particles /leptons and 4uarks1 as they interact with the !ero#point field. The 3tandard .odel has been able to predict correctly all sorts of complicated e(periments. 0owever, a skeptic would ob"ect that the 3tandard .odel does not 4uite e(plain everything that we see in nature /falling rocks, flying birds or suspended bridges1. +t only e(plains phenomena that 4uantum physicists perform in laboratories and that cosmologists presume are happening billions of light#years away. $ewton's &hysics does e(plain the phenomena of the human world /the world of ob"ects1. +t had been relatively easy to reduce Relativity Theory to $ewton's &hysics, but it had been very difficult to reduce Quantum Theory to $ewton's &hysics. +f he is right, &uthoff did "ust that. Ripples in ,pacetime +n 200C the +talian mathematician &iero 3caruffi proposed "ust the opposite approach to reconciling Quantum Theory and Relativity Theory. +f both are correct representations of nature, how can they be so different and even contradictoryF Relativity prescribes a spacetime continuum, whereas Quantum Theory prescribes a

discrete world. Relativity is deterministic, Quantum Theory is, at best, stochastic. 0ow can one be derived from the otherF 3o far, the most popular approach to unification has been -bottom#up: from Quantum Theory to Relativity. ) more appropriate approach could be top#down: deriving Quantum Theory as a special case of Relativity Theory. Quantum Theory has not e(plained why nature only likes some discrete values. /The ne(t breakthrough will be the observation of values that are forbidden by Quantum Theory. That will shed light on what Quantum Theory actually is1. Relativity Theory appears as stating some grander and somewhat more absolute about the universeB basically, about the dimensions of e(istence. Quantum Theory appears as telling us something about the human world of ob"ects and measurementsB basically, about the world of -si!es-. The best way to visuali!e these ideas is to think of relativistic spacetime as an ocean, and of 4uantum values as the ripples caused by an ob"ect moving through spacetime. The ocean is a continuum, but the ripples are discrete. 2oth the ocean and the ripples are real, and one can construct a theory to describe the ocean and a different theory to describe the ripples. Then Relativity is the theory about the ocean, and Quantum Theory is the theory about the ripples. +f this is correct, then Quantum Theory describes the ripples caused in spacetime by energy#matter in motion. 8instein's e4uations describe how spacetime warps because of matter. 3chroedinger's e4uations describe the ripples caused by such matter. +f this is correct, Relativity's space and time are different from Quantum Theory's space and time. %e use the same name for two different things: Relativity's space is a dimension, an underlying framework, whereas Quantum Theory's space is about the -si!e- of an ob"ect. 3pacetime is the continuum that energy#matter interacts with. Quantum values are the results of measuring the ripples caused by that interaction. The reason that the ripples are discrete and not continuum is e(actly the same that ripples form on a surface. )ny attribute of an ob"ect over the ripples admits only some values, because it e(ists and it is measured only over the ripples. 3caruffi believes that the probabilistic nature of Quantum Theory emerges because of the translation from -ocean- to -ripples-. Aitto for the attributes /charge, spin, etc1. They are all manifestations of the ripples. 7eneral relativity is about the dynamics of the universe: it describes an eternal dance between the distribution of masses and the geometry of spacetime, the former determining the latter and the latter determining the motion of the former. +ndirectly, 8instein's e4uations can be interpreted as the relationship /or the connection- of everything to everything else. )s connections change, other connections change. 8ach connection gets ad"usted to as to preserve some global feature of the universe. 2asically, the universe behaves like a giant brain. The 4uanti!ation of spacetime is a superficial conse4uence of the -connection of everything to everything else-, as this is e4uivalent to constructing a landscape of attractors. )rains2 ives2 Universes 5et's take a closer look at 5ife. %e have organisms. 8ach organism is defined by its genome. )n organism's genome does not vary during its lifetime. The genome of its offspring varies. The variation is the result of random processes. 8ach organism interacts with the environment and may or may not survive such interactions. +ndirectly, interactions with the environment determine how genomes evolve over many generations. Then we have neural networks. The behavior of each thinking organism is controlled by a neural network. The principle of a neural network is that of interacting with the environment, propagating the information received from the environment through its neurons and thereby generating behavior. 8ach neuron has influence over many neurons and what determines the behavior is the connections between neurons. ) neural network changes continuously during the life of an organism, especially at the very beginning. %ithin neural networks a selection process also applies. Donnections survive or die depending on how useful they are. Donnections are stronger or weaker depending on how useful they are. ,sefulness is defined by interaction with the environment.

7enomes and neural networks are systems that have in common the principle of propagating information about the environment within itself through a process of a1 interaction with the environment, b1 feedback from the environment, c1 selection. $eural networks, genetic algorithms and chaotic inflationary universes seem to obey very similar principles. They -e(pand- in order to &ropagate information within the individual, so as to determine behavior &ropagate information within the population, so as to determine evolution The 0ature of the a%s of 0ature 8ven with the sophistication of Relativity Theory, our universe presents us with an uncomfortable degree of arbitrariness. %hat is still not clear is why laws /e.g. 8instein's field e4uations1 and constants /e.g., the &lanck distance1 are the way they are. %hy is the universe the way it isF +n 9=9> the 7erman physicist )rnold 3ommerfeld introduced a 4uantity that he called -fine#structure constant- that combined all the main constants of &hysics: the speed of light, the electric charge of the electron, &lanck6s constant and the vacuum permittivity. The universe behaves the way it behaves because the value of the fine# structure constant is 9I9;<. %hy 9;<F /&hysicists such as ?ohn 2arrow and ?ohn %ebb actually believe that this constant changed over the course of our universe6s life, and our universe is but one of many universes, each with a different value for the fine#structure constant1. *urthermore: why do properties of matter such as electrical charge and mass e(ert forces on other matterF %hy do things interact at allF The most popular cosmological models presume that the physical laws we know today were already in effect at the very beginning, i.e. were born with the universe, and actually pre#e(isted it. The laws of &hysics are simply regularities that we observe in nature. They allow us to e(plain what happened, and why it happened the way it happened. They also allow us to make predictions. 3cience is all about predictions. +f we couldn't make predictions, any study of $ature would be pretty much useless. %e can build bridges and radios because we can make predictions on how things will work. Three aspects of the fundamental laws are especially pu!!ling. The first has to do with the nature of the laws of $ature. 0ow absolute are theyF 3ome laws can be reduced to other laws. $ewton's law of gravitation is but a special case of 8instein's. +t was not properly a law of $ature, it was an effect of a law of nature that $ewton did not know. These days, we are witnessing a 4uest for a unification theory, a theory that will e(plain all four known forces /weak, nuclear, electric and gravitational1 in one -megaforce-: if the program succeeds, we will have proved that those four forces were effects, not causes. +s the second law of Thermodynamics a law indeed, or "ust the effect of something elseF )fter all, the laws as we study them today in te(tbooks are the product of a historical process of scientific discovery. 0ad history been different /had progress followed a different route1 we may have come up with a description of the universe based on different laws, that would e4ually well fit /individually1 all the phenomena we are aware of. The second 4uestion is why are they mathematical formulas. .athematics is a human invention, but it is ama!ing how well it describes the universe. True, .athematics is more a discovery process than an invention process. 2ut, even so, it is a discovery of facts that occur in the realm of mathematical ideas /theorems and the likes1. +t is ama!ing that facts occurring in that abstract realm reflect so well facts that occur in the physical realm. .ost .athematics that is employed today so effectively for describing physical phenomena was worked out decades and even centuries before by mathematicians interested only in abstract mathematical problems. The rule almost never fails: sooner or later a physical phenomenon will be discovered that perfectly matches a mathematical theory. +t feels like the universe is a foreign movie, subtitled in mathematical language. 8ven more intriguing is the fact that the world of .athematics is accessible by the human mind. ur bodies have privileged access to physical space, our minds have privileged access to the notes that describe it. %e get both treats. The body

perceives physical reality reality through reasoning.

through

the

senses,

the

mind

perceives

mathematical

The third 4uestion is whether they are truly eternal. %ere they always the sameF %ill they always be the sameF $aturally, if the answer is negative, then we don't know anything. +t would seem more precisely when the to compute a model any1 were in place likely that they are part of the universe and therefore came to be universe came to be. +n that case it would therefore be impossible of how the universe was born, because we don't know which laws /if before the universe was bornO

/%e don't even know for sure whether the laws of $ature are the same in the whole universe. %e don't even know if they have been the same all the time or if they have been changing over time1. 3imilar arguments hold for the -constants- of &hysics, for the dimensionless parameters that shape the laws of nature, in particular for the speed of light, the &lanck constant, and the charge of the electron. %hy do they have the value they haveF 8instein asked: did 7od have a choice when he created the universeF Dould those numbers be different, or are they the only combination that yields a stable universeF ) famous formula has been pu!!ling scientists: the s4uare of the charge of the electron divided by the speed of light and by the &lanck constant is almost e(actly 9I9;<. %hyF %e don't have a science of natural laws which studies where laws come from. 5aws are assumed to transcend the universe, to e(ist besides and despite the e(istence of a universe. 2ut that's a rather arbitrary conclusion /or, better, premise1. The 0ature of ,pacetime )ccording to Relativity, everything sits in spacetime. )ccording to Relativity, spacetime is not a substance. 3ound waves re4uire a medium to travel /and their speed depends on the medium1, but light waves do not re4uire any medium /and it is always the same1. )ccording to 8instein, light travels in vacuum. There is no need for an -ether-. +n 9=:9 the Danadian physicist %illiam ,nruh proved the stunning similarity between sound waves propagating in moving fluid and light waves propagating in curved spacetime. +n 9=== the ,3) physicist Ted ?acobson speculated that spacetime might indeed be a -substance-, a kind of fluid /and be discrete at the microscopic scale1. The Prodi!y of ,tability Dhaos is a matter of life in this universe. %hat is surprising is that we do not live in chaos. %e live in almost absolute stability. The computer + am writing on right now is made of a few billion particles of all kinds that interact according to mechanic, gravitational, electric, magnetic, weak and strong forces. The e4uations to describe "ust a tiny portion of this computer would take up all my life. $onetheless, every morning + know e(actly how to turn on my computer and every day + know e(actly how to operate on it. )nd the -stability- of my computer will last for a long time, until it completely breaks down. .y body e(hibits the same kind of stability /for a few decades, at least1, so much so that friends recogni!e me when they see me and every year the +R3 can claim my ta( returns /no 4uantum uncertainty there1. 3tability is what we are built to care for. %e care very little about the inner processes that lead to the formation of a tomato plant: we care for the tomatoes. %e care very little for the microscopic processes that led a face to be what it is: we care for what -it looks like-. )t these levels stability is enormous. 3hape, si!e, position are stable for a number of days, weeks, months, maybe years. Gariations are minimal and slow. The more we get into the detail of what we were not built to deal with and the more confused /comple( and chaotic1 matter looks to us, with !illions and !illions of minuscule particles in permanent motion. 3cience was originally built to e(plain the world at the -natural- level. 3omehow scientists started digging into the structure of matter and reached for lower and lower levels. The laws of &hysics got more and more complicated, less and less useful for the everyman. 8ven more surprising, each level of granularity /and therefore comple(ity1 seems largely independent of the lower and higher levels. 3ociology doesn't really need

)natomy and )natomy doesn't really need Dhemistry and Dhemistry doesn't really need Quantum Theory. The smaller we get the more the universe becomes messy, incomprehensible, continuously changing, very unstable. %e have grown used to thinking that this is the real universe, because the ultimate reduction is the ultimate truth. The surprising thing is that at higher levels we only see stability. 0ow does chaos turn into stabilityF %e witness systems that can create stability, order, symmetry out of immense chaos. ne answer is that maybe it is only a matter of perception. ur body was built to perceive things at this level, and at that level things appear to be stable "ust because our senses have been built to perceive them stable. +f our senses weren't able to make order out of chaos, we wouldn't be able to operate in our environment. )nother answer, of course, could be that all other levels are inherently false... A ,elf(or!ani.in! Universe The main property of neural networks is feedback: they learn by doing things. .emory and learning seem to go hand in hand. $eural networks are -self#organi!ing- ob"ects: response to a stimulus affects, among other things, the internal state of the ob"ect. To understand the behavior of a neural network one does not need to analy!e the constituents of a neural networkB one only needs to analy!e the -organi!ation- of a neural network. &hysics assumes that matter has no memory and that the laws of $ature entail no feedback. &hysics assumes that all ob"ects in the universe are passive and response to a stimulus does not affect the internal state of the ob"ect: ob"ects are non# organi!ing, the opposite of self#organi!ing ob"ects. To understand the behavior of a physical ob"ect, one needs analy!e its constituents: the ob"ect is made of molecules, which are made of atoms, which are made of leptons and 4uarks, which are made of... There is no end to this type of investigation, as history has proved. The behavior of matter still eludes physicists even if they have reached a level of detail that is millions of times finer#grained than the level at which we operate. There is no end to this type of investigation, because everything has constituents: there is no such thing as a fundamental constituent. ?ust like there is no such thing as a fundamental instant of time or point of space. %e will always be able to split things apart with more powerful e4uipment. The e4uipment itself might be what creates constituents: atoms were -seen- with e4uipment that was not available before atoms were conceived. +n any case it is the essence itself of a -reductionist- /constituent#oriented1 science that re4uires scientists to keep going down in levels of detail. $o single particle, no matter how small, will ever e(plain its own behavior. ne needs to look at its constituents to understand why it behaves the way it behaves. 2ut then it will need to do the same thing for each new constituent. )nd so on forever. ver the last century, &hysics has gotten trapped into this endless loop. Dould matter in general be Dould matter be e(plained remember and learn. There is if folded many times, will folded. Dould we represent a analy!ed in the same that we analy!e neural networksF in terms of self#organi!ing systemsF $eural networks evidence that other ob"ects do so too: a piece of paper, -remember- that it was folded and will learn to stay piece of paper as a self#organi!ing systemF

$ature e(hibits a -hierarchy- of sort of self#organi!ing systems, from the atomic level to the biological level, from the cognitive level to the astronomical level. The -output- of one self#organi!ing system /e.g. the genome1 seems to be a new self# organi!ing system /e.g. the mind1. Dan all self#organi!ing systems be deduced from one such system, the -mother- of all self#organi!ing systemsF %e are witnessing a shift in relative dominant roles between &hysics and 2iology. )t first, ideas from physical sciences were applied to 2iology, in order to make 2iology more -scientific-. This led to 4uantifying and formali!ing biological phenomena by introducing discussions on energy, entropy and so forth. 3lowly, the debate shifted towards unification of &hysics and 2iology, rather then unidirectional import of ideas from &hysics. 2iological phenomena "ust don't fit in the rigid deterministic model of &hysics. Then it became progressively clear that biological phenomena cannot be reduced to &hysics the way we know it. )nd now we are moving steadily towards the idea that &hysics has to be changed to cope with biological phenomena, it has to absorb concepts that come from 2iology.

+n order to accommodate biological concepts, such as selection and feedback, in order to be able to encompass neural and living systems, which evolve in a Aarwinian fashion and whose behavior is described by non#linear e4uations, &hysics will need to adopt non#linear e4uations and possibly an algorithm#oriented /rather than e4uation# oriented1 approach. )lmost all of &hysics is built on the idea that the solution to a problem is the shortest proof from the known premises. The use and abuse of logic has determined a way of thinking about nature that tends to draw the simplest conclusions given what is known /and what is not known1 about the situation. *or e(ample, it was -intuitivefor scientists to think that the immune system creates anti#bodies based on the attacking virus. This is the simplest e(planation, and the one that stems from logical thinking: a virus attacks the body, a virus is killed by the bodyB therefore the body must be able to build a -killer- for that virus. The disciplines of life constantly remind us of a different approach to scientific e(planation: instead of solving a mathematical theorem through logic, nature always chooses to let things solve themselves. +n a sense, solutions are found by natural systems not via the shortest proof but thanks to redundancy. The immune systems creates all sorts of antibodies. )n invading virus will be tricked into -selecting- the one that kills it. There is no processor in the immune system that can analy!e the invading virus, determine its chemical structure and build a counter#virus, as a mathematician would -intuitively- guess. The immune system has no ability to -reason- about the attacking virus. +t doesn't even know whether some virus is attacking or not. +t simply keeps producing antibodies all the time. +f a virus attacks the body, the redundancy of antibodies will take care of it. This represents a fundamental shift of paradigm in thinking about $ature. *or many centuries, humans have implicitly assumed that the universe must be behaving like a machine: actions follow logically from situations, the history of the universe is but one gigantic mathematical proof. +t is possible that the larger#scale laws of nature resemble very little a mathematical proof. They might have more to do with randomness than with determinism. The distinction between instruction and selection is fundamental. &hysics has evolved around the concept of instruction: mathematical laws instruct matter how to behave. 3election entails a different set of mind: things happen, more or less by accident, and some are -selected- to survive. The universe as it is may be the product of such selection, not of a logical chain of instructions. &hysics is meandering after the unified theory that would e(plain all forces. %hat seems more interesting is a unification of physical and biological laws. %e are now looking for the ultimate theory of nature from whose principles the behavior of all /animate and inanimate1 systems can be e(plained. &articles, waves and forces seem less and less interesting ob"ects to study. &hysics has been built on recurring -themes-: planets revolve around the sun, electrons revolve around the nucleusB masses attract each other, charged particles attract each other. 3till, &hysics has not e(plained these recurring patterns of $ature. 2iology is e(plaining its recurring patterns of evolution. ) new scenario may be emerging, one in which the world is mostly non#linear. )nd somehow that implies that the world self#organi!es. 3elf#organi!ing systems are ones in which very comple( structures emerge from very simple rules. 3elf#organi!ing systems are about where regularity comes from. )nd self#organi!ing systems cannot be e(plained by simply analy!ing their constituents, because the organi!ation prevails: the whole is more than its parts. The Universe as the Messen!er ne pervasive property of the universe and everything that e(ists is communication. Things communicate all the time. The )ustrian physicist and philosopher 8rnst .ach had a vision of the universe that proved influential on all Twentieth century &hysics. $ewton defined inertial systems as systems that are not sub"ect to any force. They move at constant or null speed. 3ystems that are accelerated are not inertial and, by magic, strange forces /-inertial forces-1 appear in them. .ach reali!ed that all systems are sub"ect to interactions with the rest of the universe and redefined inertial systems as systems which are not accelerated in the frame of fi(ed stars /basically, in the frame of the rest of the universe1. The inertia of a body is due to its interaction with the rest of the matter in the universe.

.ach's principle implies that all things communicate with all other things all the time. This universe appears to be built on messages. The dynamics of the universe is determined to a large e(tent by the messages that are e(changed between its parts /whether you look at the level of R$), synapses or gravitation1. Things communicate. +t is "ust their nature to communicate. .ore: their interactions determine what happens ne(t. Things communicate in order to happen. 5ife happens because of communication. %e think because of communications. +f all is due to messages, a theory of the universe should de#couple the message from the messenger. .essages can be studied by defining their -languages-. .aybe, "ust maybe, instead of sciences like &hysics and 2iology we should focus on the -language- of the universe. 0ot in "ur 0ame +f one takes the Dopenhagen interpretation of Quantum .echanics to the letter, in the beginning there were only probabilities. There was no observer to -collapse- the wave functions of whatever e(isted, therefore there were only evolving wave functions: probabilities. There was, technically speaking, no reality to talk about, because there was no observer to cause it to collapse to the state of reality. 0uman reality depends on humans to e(ist and to observe it. Then at some point, out of this giant network of probabilities a conscious observer was created. That conscious observer was not a probability: it was a reality. That conscious observer /the human race1 is making the entire universe metamorphose from probabilities into reality. +n this story there seems to be something missing: how do probabilities create a conscious observerF 0ow does a state of probabilities evolve into a state of conscious observersF %as the conscious observer merely a probability from the beginning, that turned out to e(ist out of sheer luck, or was it meant to e(ist from the beginningF +s everything that can possibly e(ist eventually going to e(ist, given enough time, given enough trials and errorsF +s today's conscious observer still only a probability herself, and not an actual -reality-F Relativity tells a different story, a story of pure determinism: our future is determined by the past. +f Relativity and Quantum .echanics are both true /despite the fact that we are not capable of e(plaining one with the other1, then the emergence of the observer must have been written in the original conditions, in the original set of probabilities. The story of the universe may be the story of an entity that is slowly transforming itself from one kind of substance to another kind of substance, and consciousness might be "ust the tool that it is employing in order to achieve that transition. The ,cience of Impossibility: The End of Utopia +t is intriguing that the three scientific revolutions of the last century all involved introducing limits to classical &hysics. $ewton thought that signals could travel at infinite velocities, that position and momentum could be measured simultaneously and that energy could be manipulated at will. Relativity told us that nothing can travel faster than the speed of light. Quantum .echanics told us that we cannot measure position and momentum simultaneously. Thermodynamics told us that every manipulation of energy implies a loss of order. There are limits in our universe that did not e(ist in $ewton's ideal universe. These limits are as arbitrary as laws and constants. %hy these and not othersF .ay they be "ust clues to a more general limit that constrains our universeF .ay they be simply illusions, due to the way our universe is evolvingF

Then $ewton's world has been shaken to its foundations by Aarwin's revolution. $atural systems look different now. $ot monolithic artifacts of logic, but fle(ible and pragmatic side effects of randomness. 2y coincidence, while &hysics kept introducing limits, 2iology has been telling us the opposite. 2iological systems can do pretty much anything, at random. Then the environment makes the selection. %e have been evangeli!ed to believe that nothing is forbidden in $ature, although a lot will be suppressed. nce all these views are reconciled, $ewton's ,topia may be replaced by a new ,topia, with simple laws and no constraints. 2ut it's likely to look 4uite different from $ewton's. %here to, )lbertF -urther Readin! )shtekar )bbay: D $D8&T,)5 &R 258.3 2arbour ?ulian: T08 8$A * Q,)$T,. 7R)G+TE /2irkhauser, 9==91 * T+.8 / (ford ,niv &ress, 20001

2ohm Aavid: T08 ,$A+G+A8A ,$+G8R38 /Routledge, 9==;1 2ohm Aavid: Q,)$T,. T08 RE /Donstable, 9=C91 ohm !a"i#: $%&'(N()) AN! T%( I*P'I+AT( &R!(R ,Routle#-e. /0123 2ondi, 0ermann: -$egative .ass in 7eneral Relativity- /9=C<1 2ohr $iels: )T .+D T08 RE )$A T08 A83DR+&T+ $ 9=;J1 !a"ies Paul: A &UT TI*( ,Touchstone. /0043 Aeutsch Aavid: T08 *)2R+D * R8)5+TE /&enguin, 9==<1 * T+.8 /2asil 2lackwell, 9=:>1 *erris Timothy: T08 %0 58 3082)$7 /3imon )nd 3chuster, 9==<1 *lood Raymond R 5ockwood .ichael: $)T,R8 5ell6*ann *urray: T%( QUAR7 AN! T%( 8A5UAR ,$9%9Freeman. /00:3 7reene 2rian: T08 8587)$T ,$+G8R38 /%% $orton, 9===1 7riffiths, Robert: D $3+3T8$T Q,)$T,. T08 RE /Dambridge ,niversity &ress, 20091 7uth )lan: T08 +$*5)T+ $)RE ,$+G8R38 /0eli(, 9==<1 0awking 3tephen: ) 2R+8* 0+3T RE * T+.8 /2antam, 9=::1 * $)T,R8 +$ D $T8.& R)RE &0E3+D3 /Aeadalus, D 3. 5 7E 0eisenber %erner: T08 R8&R838$T)T+ $ 9=C:1 * $)T,R8 /Dambridge ,niversity &ress,

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0oyle *red, 2urbidge 7eoffrey, and $arlikar ?ayant: ) A+**8R8$T )&&R )D0 T /Dambridge ,niv &ress, 20001 7a;u *ichio: %<P(R)PA+( ,&=>or# Uni"ersity Press. /00:3 5inde )ndrei: &)RT+D58 &0E3+D3 )$A +$*5)T+ $)RE D 3. 5 7E /0arwood, 9==01 5inde )ndrei: +$*5)T+ $ )$A Q,)$T,. D 3. 5 7E /)cademic &ress, 9==01 mnes, Roland: Q,)$T,. &0+5 3 &0E /&rinceton ,niversity &ress, 9===1 Penrose Ro-er: T%( (*P(R&R?) N($ *IN! ,&=>or# Uni" Press. /0103

Price %uw: TI*(?) ARR&$ AN! AR+%I*(!(?) P&INT ,&=>or# Uni"ersity Press. /00@3 &rigogine +lya: *R . 28+$7 T 28D .+$7 /%. 0. *reeman, 9=:01 &uthoff, 0arold: 7ravity as a Mero &oint *luctuation *orce /9=:=1 Rees, .artin: 28* R8 T08 287+$$+$7 /3imon )nd 3chuster, 9==>1 Rosenblum, 2ruce R Kuttner, *red: Q,)$T,. 8$+7.) / (ford ,niv &ress, 200>1 3akharov, )ndrei: Gacuum Quantum *luctuations in Durved 3pace and the Theory of 7ravitation /9=>:1 3cott, )lwyn: 3T)+R%)E T 3molin, 5ee: T0R88 R )A3 T T08 .+$A /Dopernicus, 9==C1 Q,)$T,. 7R)G+TE /%eidenfeld and $icolson, 20001

3usskind, 5eonard: T08 D 3.+D 5)$A3D)&8 /5ittle R 2rown, 200C1 Gon $eumann, ?ohn: A+8 .)T08.)T+3D08 7R,$A5)78$ A8R Q,)$T8$.8D0)$+KI .)T08.)T+D)5 * ,$A)T+ $3 * Q,)$T,. .8D0)$+D3 /&rinceton ,niversity &ress, 9=;21 %ebb, ?ohn: T08 D $3T)$T3 * $)T,R8 /&antheon, 20021 $einber-. )te"en: !R(A*) &F A FINA' T%(&R< ,Pantheon. /00A3 %igner, 8ugene: 3E..8TR+83 )$A R8*58DT+ $3 /+ndiana ,niv &ress, 9=><1