Time Made Of Discrete Quantas

Scientists Believed Time Made Of Discrete Quantas Called Chronons

One of the implications of quantum physics is that certain aspects and properties of the universe are quantized. They are composed of discrete indivisible packets or quanta.

As an example, the electrons orbiting an atom are found in specific fixed orbits and don’t slide nearer or beyond the nucleus as their energy levels change, but jump from one discrete quantum state to a different .

Even light, which we all know to be a kind of electromagnetic wave which moves in waves, is additionally composed of quantas of sunshine called photons. In order that light has aspects of both waves and particles and sometimes it behaves sort of a wave and sometimes it behaved sort of a particle (wave particle duality).

An obvious question: is time divided into discrete quanta? Consistent with quantum physics, the solution appears to be “no” and time appears to be actually smooth and continuous.

Tests are administered using sophisticated timing equipment and pulsating laser beams to watch chemical changes happening at very small fractions of a second (femto second, or 10^-15 sec) and at that level time certainly appears to be smooth and continuous.

However, if time actually is quantized, it is likely to be at the extent of Planck time (about 10^-43 seconds). The littlest possible length of your time consistent with theoretical physics, and doubtless forever beyond our practical measurement abilities.

It should be noted that our current knowledge of physics remains incomplete and consistent with some theories that look to mix quantum. Physics and gravity into one “Theory of Everything” (mentioned as quantum gravity). There is an opportunity that point could actually be quantized.

A hypothetical chronon unit for a discrete quantum of your time has been proposed, although it is not clear just how long a chronon should be.

Introduction

The idea of a discrete temporal evolution isn’t a replacement one and, as most the physical ideas, has from time to time been recovered from oblivion. For instance in classical Greece this concept came to light as a part of the atomistic thought. In Middle Age, belief with in the discontinuous character of your time was at the idea of the “theistic atomism“ held by the Arabic thinkers of the Kalam.

In Europe, discussions about the discreteness of space and time are often found for instance within the writings of Isidore of Sevilla, Nicolaus Boneti and Henry of Harday, who discussed the character of continuum.

The idea of the existence of fundamental interval of your time was rejected by Leibniz. Since it had been incompatible together with his rationalistic  philosophy.

Within modern physics, however, Planck’s famous work on black body radiation inspired a replacement view of the topic.

In fact, the introduction of the quanta opened a good range of latest scientific possibilities regarding the way the physical world are often conceived. Including considerations, like those within the present paper, on the “discretization” of your time within the framework of quantum physics (QM).

Early years of our century, Mach regarded the concept of continuum to be a consequence of our physiological limitations 

Also Poincare took into consideration the possible existence of what he called an “atom of your time”. The minimum amount of time which allows to distinguish between two states of a system. Finally J.J.Thomson suggested the electrical force to act during a discontinuous way, producing finite increments of momentum separated by finite intervals of your time .

Such a seminal work has ever since inspired a series of papers on the existence of a fundamental interval of your time, named chronon; though the outcome of all that work was small, at that point .

A further seminal article was the one by Ambarzumian and Ivanenko, appeared in 1930. Which assumed space time as being discrete and also stimulated an outsized number of subsequent papers.

It is important to worry that in theory Time Discretization are often introduced in two distinct ways:

1. By attributing to time a discrete structure, i.e., by regarding time not as a continuum, but as a one-dimensional “Lattice“.

2. By considering time as a continuum, during which events can happen (discontinuously) only at discrete instants of your time .

Almost all the attempts to introduce a discretization of your time followed the primary way, generally as a part of a more extended procedure during which the space time as an entire is considered as intrinsically discrete (four dimensional lattice).

Also T.D.Lee introduced time discretization on the idea of the finite number of experimental measurements performable in any finite interval of your time .

This approach was first adopted within the twenties by Pokrowski, after Thomson work, and resulted within the first real example of a theory supported the existence of a fundamental interval of time: the one set forth by Caldirola, within the fifties.

Namely, Caldirola formulated a theory for the classical electron, with the aim of providing a classical theory for its motion in an electromagnetic field. In the late seventies, Caldirola extended its procedure to non-relativistic quantum physics.

It is known that classical theory of the electron in an electromagnetic field (efforts by Abraham, Lorentz, Poincare and Dirac, among others) actually presents many serious problems; except of course when the sector of the particle is neglected.

By replacing Dirac’s equation by two finite difference equations.  Caldirola developed a theory during which the most difficulties of Dirac’s theory  were overcome.

As we shall see, in his relativistically invariant formalism the chronon characterizes the changes suffered by the dynamical state of the electron when it’s submitted to external forces. In order that the electron are going to be considered an object, which is point like only at discrete positions  xn  (along its trajectory) such that the electron takes a quantum of proper time to travel from one position to the following one or rather two chronons.

It is tempting to look at extensively the generalization of such a theory to the quantum domain; and this may be performed within the present work.

Let us recall that one among the foremost interesting aspects of the discretized Schrodinger equations is that the mass of the muon and of the taulepton followed as like the 2 levels of the primary (degenerate) excited state of the electron.

In conventional QM there’s an ideal equivalence among its various pictures: Schrodinger’s, Heisenberg’s, density matrix’s .

When discretizing the evolution equations, we shall achieve writing down those pictures during a form such they result to be still equivalent. However, so as to be compatible with the Schrodinger representation, our Heisenberg equations cannot generally be obtained by an immediate discretization of the continual Heisenberg equation.

The Introduction of the Chronon within the Classical Theory of the Electron

Almost a century after its discovery, the electron continues to be an object waiting for a convincing description , both in classical and QED. As Schroedinger put it, the electron remains a stranger in electrodynamics. Maxwell’s electromagnetism may be a field theoretical approach during which no reference is formed to the existence of fabric corpuscles.

Thus, one may say that one among the foremost controversial questions of the 20th century physics“the wave particle paradox”,is not characteristic of QM only. In the electron classical theory, matching the outline of the electromagnetic fields (obeying Maxwell equations) with the existence of charge carriers just like the electron remains a challenging task. 

The hypothesis that electric currents might be related to charge carriers was already present with in the early “particle electrodynamics” formulated in 1846 by Fechner and Weber. But such a thought was taken into considerations again only a couple of decades. Later, in 1881, by  Helmholtz. Up there to time, electrodynamics had been developed on the hypothesis of an electromagnetic continum and of an ether.

In that same year, J.J.Thomson wrote his seminal paper during which the electron mass was considered purely electromagnetic in nature. Namely, the energy and momentum related to the electromagnetic fields produced by an electron were held entirely liable for the energy and momentum of the electron itself.

Lorentz’s electrodynamics, which described the particle particle interact via electromagnetic fields by the famous force law +ivAB^, p being the charge density of the particle on which the fields act, dates back to the beginning of the 1890 decade.

The electron was finally discovered by Thomson in 1897 and with in the following years various theories appeared. The famous (pre-relativistic) theories by Abraham, Lorentz and Poincare regarded it as an extended-type object, endowed again with a purely electromagnetic mass. 

As well known, in 1903 Abraham proposed the simple-minded (and questionable) Model of a Rigid Sphere, with a consistent electric charge density on its surface. The idea of Lorentz (1904) was quite similar, trying to enhance things with the mere introduction of the consequences resulting from the Lorentz Fitz Gerald contraction.