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Time in a quantum mechanical world
| Content Provider | Scilit |
|---|---|
| Author | Pegg, David T. |
| Copyright Year | 1991 |
| Description | Journal: Journal of Physics A: General Physics In quantum mechanics it is usual to represent physical reality as a vector in Hilbert space at a particular time, with evolution being governed by Schrodinger's equation which involves an externally imposed time parameter. This leads to difficulties if one wishes to regard the universe as a quantum mechanical system, because there should no time external to such a system. The approach in this paper is to represent the totality of reality as a vector in Hilbert space. The author shows how time evolution follows, where time now is defined in terms of the states of a quantum mechanical clock which is part of the system. Rather than the correlation between the clock states and the states of the rest of the system arising because both are governed by an imposed law involving an external time parameter, it is seen that this correlation is of the separation-independent Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen type. The total reality vector, which incorporates the whole history of the system, is shown to be a zero-energy eigenstate of the system Hamiltonian. He discusses systems of finite and infinite lifetime, and is able to answer the question: what was the state before the initial state? He concludes that the quantum mechanical system of this paper is a reasonable representation of the observed universe. |
| Related Links | http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/0305-4470/24/13/018/pdf |
| Ending Page | 3040 |
| Page Count | 10 |
| Starting Page | 3031 |
| ISSN | 00223689 |
| DOI | 10.1088/0305-4470/24/13/018 |
| Journal | Journal of Physics A: General Physics |
| Issue Number | 13 |
| Volume Number | 24 |
| Language | English |
| Publisher | IOP Publishing |
| Publisher Date | 1991-07-07 |
| Access Restriction | Open |
| Subject Keyword | Journal: Journal of Physics A: General Physics History and Philosophy of Science Hilbert Space Quantum Mechanics |
| Content Type | Text |
| Resource Type | Article |
