4 ms·
The idea that spacetime is emergent and not fundamental dates back to the 60s and has seen some pretty neat stuff along the way, like Bekenstein and Hawking dis
by sigmoid10 1y ago
The idea that spacetime is emergent and not fundamental dates back to the 60s and has seen some pretty neat stuff along the way, like Bekenstein and Hawking discussing information problems in the 70s that hinted at a deep connection between gravity and thermodynamics. Then in the 90s we had Jacobson deriving General Relativity from the first law of thermodynamics and in the 2000s we had Verlinde combining this with holography. It's not a "solved" problem by any stretch, but some of the greatest physicists of their generation have meddled with this and I think there are almost none left who would refute the basic idea. It's the details that people are still arguing about - which now include this paper.
- stared 1y agoThere are quite a few ideas! Myself, I would bet on Polymarket that there is something more fundamental than curved 1+3 spacetime. Some are, as you said, in thermodynamics. In the String Theory, 1+3 is a somewhat reduced space from original 26 dimensions or so. (This "somewhat" is the core issue.) So sure, "The idea that spacetime is emergent and not fundamental dates back to the 60s" would work as an awesome opening of the paper.
- sigmoid10 1y agoThe "growing consensus" bit literally alludes to all these developments. But granted, you have to be versed in the field to understand this. On the other hand, this is a research paper. It is not written for laypeople.
- m3kw9 1y agoI don’t think anything is fundamental given that there is always something that is made of that something.