|
Dr. David Robson |
Arleta Griffor |
Lindon Neil |
Graham Yendall |
Click News-Events
Professor Basil J. Hiley has been awarded the Majorana
Medal for 2012
Our group is continuing
to explore the fundamental ideas introduced by the late Professor Bohm and is
engaged on an extensive research programme covering a wide range of fundamental
issues arising from an examination of the foundations of quantum mechanics and
general relativity.
The central new
notion introduced by quantum mechanics is not indeterminism, nor uncertainty,
but wholeness. This new feature has been described by phrases such as "the
non-separability of spatially separated
systems", or more briefly as "quantum non-locality". These terms
are actually inadequate expressions of the radical implications of the notion
of wholeness and reflect a strong desire to cling to a reductionist philosophy.
A radically new approach is needed, an approach that does not depend upon the
Cartesian Order, but requires the introduction of new orders such as the
implicate order and the generative order. Mathematical descriptions of these
new orders are under active development at present.
It is now quite clear that if gravity is to be quantised successfully, a radical change in our understanding of spacetime will be needed. We begin from a more fundamental level by taking the notion of process as our starting point. Rather than beginning with a spacetime continuum, we introduce a structure process which, in some suitable limit, approximates to the continuum. We are exploring the possibility of describing this process by some form of non-commutative algebra, an idea that fits into the general ideas of the implicate order. In such a structure, the non-locality of quantum theory can be understood as a specific feature of this more general a-local background and that locality, and indeed time, will emerge as a special feature of this deeper a-local structure.
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