Image: New Scientist
However, the researchers’ version of this famous equation was based on the case of tiny magnets acting as clocks instead of timekeepers. While this realization itself is not new, the team’s next step was. They repeated their calculations twice, first assuming that the magnetic clock and then the harmonic oscillator were macroscopic (larger) objects. Their equations were simplified to those of classical physics, which in turn suggested that the flow of time is the result of the entanglement of large objects. “We believe that the right and logical direction is to start from quantum physics and understand how to get to classical physics, and not the other way around,” commented Alessandro Coppo, a theoretical physicist at the Italian National Research Council.
No one knows yet what will happen to this approach.
Other physicists have expressed caution about the new theory. Although Page and Waters' mechanism is a fascinating idea regarding the quantum origin of time, they add that this assumption has not yet been experimentally supported.
Image: New Scientist
“Yes, it is mathematically proven to think of global time as an entanglement of quantum fields and quantum states of three-dimensional space,” said Vlatko Vedral, a professor of quantum information science at the University of Oxford, who was not involved in the study. “However, no one knows whether this approach will lead to anything new or fruitful—for example, modifications to quantum physics and general relativity, as well as appropriate experimental tests to support it,” the Oxford professor says.
Image: Science Library
Despite the doubts, building theories of time derived from quantum mechanics could be a very promising starting point – as long as they can be adapted to fit experiments.
Maybe there's something in this tangle where time plays a role.
“Maybe the only way to understand time is not from God’s perspective (sort of), but from the inside, from the perspective where we first ask ourselves what life is that gives this appearance to the world,” says Adam Frank, a theoretical physicist at the University of Rochester in New York, who was not involved in the study.
