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| quote: | Originally posted by CorneliusCB21T
There are a few good postulates out there, String theory being one of them. Among the various ideas put forward in the search for a theory of quantum gravity, the causal set hypothesis is distinguished by its logical simplicity and by the fact that it incorporates the assumption of an underlying spacetime discreteness organically and from the very beginning.
In the way that it has developed, the causal set hypothesis has given rise to a mathematical framework (the "dynamics of sequential growth") in which time is an active process of "becoming" that can be identified with the continual birth of new elements of the causal set.
The conceptual simplicity of the theory has meant that it has been possible to draw from it interesting phenomenological consequences, even though the theory remains in an incomplete stage of development. Perhaps the most interesting prediction so far was that of fluctuations in the value of the so-called cosmological constant that are consistent with subsequent observations. |
"The question of the validity of the presuppositions of geometry in the infinitely small hangs together with the question of the inner ground of the metric relationships of space. In connection with the latter question... the above remark applies, that for a discrete manifold, the principle of its metric relationships is already contained in the concept of the manifold itself, whereas for a continuous manifold, it must come from somewhere else. Therefore, either the reality which underlies physical space must form a discrete manifold or else the basis of its metric relationships should be sought for outside it[...]." Riemann.
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