> Abstract: Despite the obvious utility of the concept, it has often been argued that time does not exist. I take the opposite perspective: let's imagine that time does exist, and the universe is described by a quantum state obeying ordinary time-dependent quantum mechanics. Reconciling this simple picture with the known facts about our universe turns out to be a non-trivial task, but by taking it seriously we can infer deep facts about the fundamental nature of reality. The arrow of time finds a plausible explanation in a "Heraclitean universe," described by a quantum state eternally evolving in an infinite-dimensional Hilbert space.
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| Comments: | Submission to the Foundational Questions Institute Essay Competition on "The Nature of Time." |
| Subjects: | General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology (gr-qc); High Energy Physics - Theory (hep-th) |
| Citeas: | [arXiv:0811.3772][33] [gr-qc] |
| | (or [arXiv:0811.3772v1][34] [gr-qc] for this version) |
## Submission history
From: Sean Carroll [[view email][35]]
[**v1]** Sun, 23 Nov 2008 21:07:47 GMT (33kb,D)
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Link back to: [arXiv][39], [form interface][40], [contact][41].