Reflections on the Fate of Spacetime
DOI: 10.1063/1.881493
Our basic ideas about physics went through several upheavals early this century. Quantum mechanics taught us that the classical notions of the position and velocity of a particle were only approximations of the truth. With general relativity, spacetime became a dynamical variable, curving in response to mass and energy. Contemporary developments in theoretical physics suggest that another revolution may be in progress, through which a new source of “fuzziness” may enter physics, and spacetime itself may be reinterpreted as an approximate, derived concept. (See figure 1.) In this article I survey some of these developments.
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References
1. J. H. Schwarz, ed., Superstrings: The First 15 Years of Superstring Theory,” vols. 1 and 2. World‐Scientific, Singapore (1985).
2. For instance, see M. B. Green, J. H. Schwarz, E. Witten, Superstring Theory, vol. 1, Cambridge U.P., Cambridge, UK (1987), chap. 1.
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More about the authors
Edward Witten, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, New Jersey.
