A new theory posited by theoretical physicists suggests time is simply an illusion created by the quantum world. In other words, it might not be a solid concept of the universe as previously thought.
Time is possibly the greatest unknown in the minds of physicists, with its inconsistent doings making it almost impossible to fully understand, thus always evading the “theory of everything” physicists are working towards.
However, this recent study embodies hope for solving this issue—by making time a consequence of quantum entanglement, the strange link between two distant particles. The research team reported their findings in May in the journal Physical Review A.
“There exists a way to introduce time which is consistent with both classical laws and quantum laws, and is a manifestation of entanglement,” first author Alessandro Coppo, a physicist at the National Research Council of Italy, told Live Science. “The correlation between the clock and the system creates the emergence of time, a fundamental ingredient in our lives.”
Time in quantum mechanics
Within the realm of quantum mechanics, which is our most complete theory of the atomic world, time is a fixed phenomenon. It is a unidirectional passage from the past to the present. Moreover, it is external from the ever-evolving quantum systems it measures and can only be seen by observing changes to outside objects, such as the hands of a clock, according to Live Science.
However, Einstein’s theory of general relativity, which relates to larger objects, such as stars and galaxies, tells us that time is connected to space and can be distorted at high speeds or in the presence of gravity.
“It seems there is a serious inconsistency in quantum theory,” Coppo told Live Science. “This is what we call the problem of time.” To fix this issue, scientists looked into a theory called the Page-Wootters mechanism. The theory imparts that time emerges for one object through its quantum entanglement with another acting as a clock. In an unentangled system, however, time does not exist, and the system sees the universe as stuck and unchanging.
With the application of the Page-Wootters mechanism to two entangled but non-interacting theoretical quantum states, one being a vibrating harmonic oscillator and the second a series of small magnets acting as a clock, the scientists discovered that their system was perfectly described by the Schrödinger equation. This equation predicts the behavior of quantum objects.
This method is not new. However, the team went one step further. They repeated their calculation twice, making the assumption that the magnet clock and then the harmonic oscillator were larger items.
Their equations were in line with those of earlier physics, suggesting that the flow of time is a consequence of entanglement even for objects on large scales.
