2009/03/23 by Carlo Rovelli, Rovelli, Carlo · 2 citations
Arts and Humanities · Physics and Astronomy · #Advanced Thermodynamics and Statistical Mechanics #FOS: Physical sciences #General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology (gr-qc) #Philosophy and History of Science #Quantum Mechanics and Applications
paper · doi:10.48550/arxiv.0903.3832
openalex publication_date 2009/03/23 · openalex created_date 2023/09/19 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/29
Following a line of research that I have developed for several years, I argue that the best strategy for understanding quantum gravity is to build a picture of the physical world where the notion of time plays no role. I summarize here this point of view, explaining why I think that in a fundamental description of nature we must "forget time", and how this can be done in the classical and in the quantum theory. The idea is to develop a formalism that treats dependent and independent variables on the same footing. In short, I propose to interpret mechanics as a theory of relations between variables, rather than the theory of the evolution of variables in time.