spacetime
In this interview cosmologist Marina Cortês explains how time emerges in a block universe, exploring the arguments for and against this theory, and alternative explanations where time is fundamental.
To understand how spacetime might have emerged in the early cosmos we need to heat up the equations, and thaw the space and time dimensions.
Space is the stage on which physics happens. It's unaffected by what happens in it and it would still be there if everything in it disappeared. This is how we learn to think about space at school. But the idea is as novel as it is out-dated.
One of the many strange ideas from quantum mechanics is that space isn't continuous but consists of tiny chunks. Ordinary geometry is useless when it comes to dealing with such a space, but algebra makes it possible to come up with a model of spacetime that might do the trick. And it can all be tested by a satellite. Shahn Majid met up with Plus to explain.
A public discussion explores deep questions