Since at least Einstein we have seen spacetime as fundamental. But modern physics, from quantum field theory to gravity, now suggests spacetime is doomed. So, what lies beyond spacetime? We, ourselves, might be part of the answer, writes Donald D. Hoffman.
Who am I? If I glance in a mirror, I appear as a body, as one object among scores in space and time. I feel myself to be immersed in space and time. When I gaze at countless stars on a crisp night, I feel myself shrink to a mere speck that is trekking through space and coasting through time. My immersion is total: space and time are my perceptual reality, yes, but also my conceptual cage. If I challenge myself to imagine something—anything—outside of space or beyond time, I’m stymied. I may as well try to imagine a new color I’ve never seen before. Nothing happens. My confinement within space and time appears complete.
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Einstein and why the block universe is a mistake
By Dean Buonomano
It is no wonder then that, for centuries, science has taken space and time as fundamental. With Isaac Newton they were fundamental and distinct. With Albert Einstein, and his 1905 theory of special relativity, they are fundamental and united. [1] As Hermann Minkowski announced in 1908: “Henceforth space by itself, and time by itself, are doomed to fade away into mere shadows, and only a kind of union of the two will preserve an independent reality.” [1]
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David Gross, a 2004 Nobel Laureate in physics, predicted in his tribute to Einstein that spacetime is “doomed”, that it is not fundamental.
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