(urth) Short Story 71: Silhouette

[Paul Zinn-Justin]

On Tue, Jul 29, 2014 at 10:03 PM, Dan'l Danehy-Oakes <danldo at gmail.com>
wrote:

> "Do time quanta exist?"
>
> Whether spacetime is quantified is a gritty problem. Superstring theory
> seems to say yes, but superstring theory is, shall we say, far from proven.
>
> I think the word you're looking for is "quantized". according to quantum
mechanics, everything should be quantized, but the theory that describes
spacetime on all scales (Einstein's theory of general relativity) doesn't
get along very well with quantum mechanics, hence various speculative
theories (such as superstrings) to reconcile them. It doesn't mean that the
geometry of spacetime should be thought of as discrete in nature (as
opposite to continuous), but rather that its geometry at short distances
becomes a bit fuzzy, essentially quantum in nature.
that being said, I haven't read the short story, so I'll stop my digression
here.
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