Spacetime Physics

物理学的一个核心问题一直没有消失：在大爆炸和黑洞中心的引力坍缩中，时空会发生什么？根据现在所理解的物理学，在这两个时间之后，就没有时间了。本文试图利用这一困难；把它转化为获得对物理学基础的新见解的机会。这样做的工具包括：(1)在J. W. York的初始值公式中看到的经典几何动力学；(2)在通常的WDW方程中看到的这种动力学的量子版本；(3)量子测量理论，因为它告诉我们预测的动力学中哪些是有意义的，哪些是没有意义的；(4)将问题和发现转化为比特计数的信息理论语言。

A problem at the heart of physics persistently refuses to go away: What happens to spacetime at big bang and in the gravitational collapse at the center of a black hole, both of them times beyond which -- according to physics as now understood -- there is no time? The present work seeks to capitalize on this difficulty; to turn it into opportunity to win new insight into the foundations of physics. Tools to do this will include: (1) the classical dynamics of geometry as seen in the initial- value formulation of J. W. York, (2) the quantum version of this dynamics as seen in the usual WDW equation, (3) the quantum theory of measurement as it tells what about the predicted dynamics makes sense and what does not and (4) the translation of questions and findings from and into the information-theoretical language of bit counts.