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> The only thing (or things) in science that are not emergent are the laws of Quantum Mechanics and Relativity (as a simplification) By "relativity" I'm assumi

> The only thing (or things) in science that are not emergent are the laws of Quantum Mechanics and Relativity (as a simplification) By "relativity" I'm assuming you're referring to SR or GR here. I always thought of relativity as an emergent phenomenon due to the large scales we are working with. What makes you say it is not?

ClayFerguson 10y ago
There are currently no good theories about why SR and GR hold true. They appear to be as fundamental as QM, but are totally independent of QM. QM always obeys SR/GR in terms of how spacetime behaves, and how mass affects things, etc, but there is no theory that says Relativity is true 'because of' QM (or emerging from QM), although that is a goal that is being searched for. It would be nice if either QM caused GR or vice versa, but no one has a clue how it could be true yet.
- wfunction 10y ago
  > QM always obeys SR/GR in terms of how spacetime behaves, and how mass affects things, etc. We still haven't experimentally verified how gravity works on atomic scales, though, have we? I consider it completely plausible that it works differently than GR postulates, because to me (non-physicist here) GR seems to be a "large numbers" phenomenon and assumes space possesses certain properties that it may very well not possess on small scales (e.g. any kind of smoothness or even continuity).
  - ClayFerguson 10y ago
    We have verified (experimentally) that individual particles, whose quantum properties can be individually measured, do obey the rules of SR/GR. That is, space is curved for them in the presence of mass, and time slows down based on velocity, etc. Everything about QM that involves spacetime, has to be considered using the Relativity definitions of spacetime. Non-relativistic classical calculations will give the wrong answers always and relativistic is always right. Gravity only 'appears' to be a 'large numbers' problem because it's effect is so weak compared to EMF, as far as is proven. But my opinion is it's 50/50 chance that in the end SR/GR actually is emergent from something more fundamental rather than "that's just how it is."

ClayFerguson 10y ago

There are currently no good theories about why SR and GR hold true. They appear to be as fundamental as QM, but are totally independent of QM. QM always obeys SR/GR in terms of how spacetime behaves, and how mass affects things, etc, but there is no theory that says Relativity is true 'because of' QM (or emerging from QM), although that is a goal that is being searched for. It would be nice if either QM caused GR or vice versa, but no one has a clue how it could be true yet.

wfunction 10y ago
> QM always obeys SR/GR in terms of how spacetime behaves, and how mass affects things, etc. We still haven't experimentally verified how gravity works on atomic scales, though, have we? I consider it completely plausible that it works differently than GR postulates, because to me (non-physicist here) GR seems to be a "large numbers" phenomenon and assumes space possesses certain properties that it may very well not possess on small scales (e.g. any kind of smoothness or even continuity).
- ClayFerguson 10y ago
  We have verified (experimentally) that individual particles, whose quantum properties can be individually measured, do obey the rules of SR/GR. That is, space is curved for them in the presence of mass, and time slows down based on velocity, etc. Everything about QM that involves spacetime, has to be considered using the Relativity definitions of spacetime. Non-relativistic classical calculations will give the wrong answers always and relativistic is always right. Gravity only 'appears' to be a 'large numbers' problem because it's effect is so weak compared to EMF, as far as is proven. But my opinion is it's 50/50 chance that in the end SR/GR actually is emergent from something more fundamental rather than "that's just how it is."