søndag, februar 22, 2009

Gregory Keaton

I samlingen af essays i konkurrencen "The Nature of Time" har jeg lige læst et interessant essay af Gregory Keaton: "What Is Time?". Her skriver forfatteren følgende:

The quantum jump is, in physicist John Wheeler’s words, “an elementary act of creation.” The wavefunction gives a potentiality for something to happen, and that clay of potentiality is sculpted into reality by quantum jumps. The world is being created at every moment.

If the universe were a fait accompli, a piece of clockwork whose future is determined, true creativity would not exist because every act would be the result of some previous influence. In such a universe, time would not flow, and the sense of “now,” would be an illusion. And even in our own universe, the equations so far discovered that describe the behavior of matter do not corroborate the existence of time. The time parameter t can be eliminated.

But there is more to the universe than just what is in the equations. Quantum jumps occur all the time. The “now” intrudes on us constantly. Nature is dynamic and changing, always being born, constantly being renewed through elementary acts of creation. Time exists.

Jeg har en speciel grund til at citere denne passage, nemlig at det passer ret godt til mit tidligere indlæg "Q" fra den 6. juni 2008.

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