ON TIME AND SPACE

In quantum theory time and space are emergent phenomena - secondary properties that arise from a deeper, non-spatiotemporal layer of quantum information (the Implicate Order?).

Just as "temperature" does not exist for a single atom but emerges from the collective motion of billions of atoms, space and time do not exist at the most fundamental quantum level.

Holographic projection of spacetime from quantum data. Source: Asian Scientist Magazine

1. Space as Emergent Entanglement

In modern theoretical physics (building on work by Mark Van Raamsdonk, Juan Maldacena, and Leonard Susskind), physical space is generated by quantum entanglement:

• The "Glue" of Geometry: If you reduce the quantum entanglement between two regions of space toward zero, the geometric distance between them effectively goes to infinity. Space "tears" apart.

• ER = EPR Hypothesis: This conjecture posits that entangled particles (EPR pairs) are connected by microscopic wormholes (Einstein-Rosen bridges). Smooth, continuous space is literally woven together by a dense network of quantum entanglement.

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2. The Holographic Principle

Modern physics demonstrates that a universe with gravity and spatial depth can be mathematically translated into a lower-dimensional boundary that contains no gravity and one less spatial dimension.

This shows that spatial depth ("distance") can be viewed as an emergent projection—much like a 3D hologram projected from a 2D sheet of encoded quantum information.

3. The "Problem of Time" in Quantum Physics

When physicists attempt to apply quantum mechanics to the entire universe (Quantum Cosmology), time disappears entirely:

• The Wheeler-DeWitt Equation: 

  
  
  This equation describes the quantum wave function of the entire Universe, and it contains no time variable (t). From the outside perspective, the Universe is frozen and timeless.

• The Page-Wootters Mechanism: Time only "appears" when an observer inside the system correlates one quantum subsystem (a clock) with another subsystem. Time is a relational perspective between entangled parts, not an absolute background flow.

The Connection to Bohmian Reality

To quantum physics, spacetime is real to our macroscopic perception, but it is not fundamental. At the Planck scale, there is no physical distance or temporal tick - there is only a non-local network of quantum states exchanging information.

This directly aligns with David Bohm’s model: what we perceive as space and time belongs to the unfolded Explicate Order, while the primary reality is the atemporal, non-local Implicate Order.