Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
Rocket your D&D 5E and Level Up: Advanced 5E games into space! Alpha Star Magazine Is Launching... Right Now!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Kwalish Kid" data-source="post: 485914" data-attributes="member: 446">I just saw a talk by Fotini Markopoulou Kalamara about trying to combine quantum mechanics/field theory with GTR. We were lucky to get her, as she's in this month's Scientific American. See the following link:<a href="http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articleID=0007E95C-9597-1DC9-AF71809EC588EEDF&catID=2" target="_blank">http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articleID=0007E95C-9597-1DC9-AF71809EC588EEDF&catID=2</a>Markopoulou Kalamara postulates (if I got her right) that the fundamental units of relationship in spacetime are quantum events. The relationships that we see are actually akin to a thermodynamic effect: the large-scale interaction of quantum events produces what we see as GTR. FTL effects would seem to be possible, but not ever be seen at large distances.She seems hesitant to put much weight in such postulating, however. Her main work seems to be looking for ways to experimentally test models of quantum gravity. She's willing to abandon much of her own theories based on the outcomes of experiment.It turns out that in the next 5 to 10 years, there may be some significant results that can be applied to the field. If space is in fact made up of discrete units, there may be an effect on the speed of light at different wavelengths. Effectively, short-wavelength photons will "catch" on the discrete units of spacetime more often than long-wavelength photons. Thus the former will end up slower than the latter. A satellite that will soon be sent up to examine X-rays may provide an opportunity to test this prediction.</blockquote>

Verification