(Quantum) spacetime as a statistical geometry of lumps in random networks
- 12 May 2000
- journal article
- research article
- Published by IOP Publishing in Classical and Quantum Gravity
- Vol. 17 (10) , 2029-2057
- https://doi.org/10.1088/0264-9381/17/10/301
Abstract
In the following we undertake to describe how macroscopic spacetime (or rather, a microscopic protoform of it) is supposed to emerge as a superstructure of a web of lumps in a stochastic discrete network structure. As in preceding work (mentioned below), our analysis is based on the working philosophy that both physics and the corresponding mathematics have to be genuinely discrete on the primordial (Planck scale) level. This strategy is concretely implemented in the form of cellular networks and random graphs. One of our main themes is the development of the concept of physical (proto)points or lumps as densely entangled subcomplexes of the network and their respective web, establishing something like (proto)causality. It may perhaps be said that certain parts of our programme are realizations of some early ideas of Menger and more recent ones sketched by Smolin a couple of years ago. We briefly indicate how this two-storey concept of quantum spacetime can be used to encode the (at least in our view) existing non-local aspects of quantum theory without violating macroscopic spacetime causality!All Related Versions
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