Bohemian Quantum Gravity: The Musical

Post Reply New Topic

This guy rules.

Who would have thought I'd find others interested in Quantum Gravity in an aspie forum. LOL.
Sometimes I bemuse myself.

So, I'm currently looking at Bohemian Mechanics and Guage theory in relation to GR.
Specifically, I'm interested in changes to our current philosophical understanding of temporality.

I've come up with ideas for modeling simultaneity and showing Lorentz invariance in GR;
though, I don't yet have the Quantum Fields background to show that this model could work for quantized states.

Any links suggestions for reading is always appreciated.
Cheers.

Don't you mean Quantum Mechanics? "Bohemian" is the musical genre.

If I may ask, how advanced is your understanding? Are you doing an undergraduate physics degree? You really need at least a basic understanding of (non-relativistic) quantum mechanics before you get into quantum field theory. Also, Lorentz invariance is really only locally applicable in GR, so you should really be looking at Local Lorentz Invariance when working with GR.

With regards to reading material, a good introduction to quantum field theory is the textbook by Franz Mandl and Graham Shaw:

http://www.amazon.com/Quantum-Field-Theory-Franz-Mandl/dp/0471496847

A more advanced book on quantum field theory is the textbook by Peskin and Schroeder (though I personally find Shaw's one above easier to understand):

http://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Quantum-Theory-Frontiers-Physics/dp/0201503972

For general relativity, the text book by James Hartle is an excellent and easy to understand introduction:

http://www.amazon.com/Gravity-Introduction-Einsteins-General-Relativity/dp/0805386629

If you want a more advanced book on GR though, you could try Robert Wald's book but I must warn you that it's difficult to understand if you don't already have a basic background in the subject:

http://www.amazon.com/General-Relativity-Robert-M-Wald/dp/0226870332

Of course, the most comprehensive book on GR is the old reference book by Misner, Thorne and Wheeler, though it's a bit expensive:

http://www.amazon.com/Gravitation-Physics-Series-Charles-Misner/dp/0716703440

I have terrible spelling... and sometimes just let spellcheck just do it's thing. LOL.
Hence the Bohemian / Bohmian mixup.

Yes Jono- I am currently doing my Undergraduate.
Fingers crosses my Uni will have enrollment requirements high enough to run the Undergrad Quantum Field class next term.

I understand that Lorentz invariance is only applicable in GR; but in order to abstract philosophical notions of temporality we need to look at non-locality. I feel that any theory of temporality must satisfy both GR & current Quantum understanding; including "spooky action at a distance".

I really appreciated your text reference list. I'll have a flick through any that are available at the library.
Cheap student.

What area of Physics do you study/work in?
Cheers, and thanks for the reply.

Oh sorry, I guess it was just coincidence that Bohemian is also in the title of the thread (due to the musical nature of the video). I that's what you were referring to.

I think you're talking about quantum entanglement and the EPR paradox. The thing is, I don't think that the Bohmian formulation of quantum mechanics is correct and it can't really be extended to work with quantum field theory. Shaw's book, which I listed above is actually a good textbook for quantum field theory on an undergraduate level. Quantum fields in curved space-time has been actually been partly worked out already and it's a good first approximation to quantum gravity.

I'm doing my PhD in theoretical physics, but I'm not limited to one specific area. I did my MSc in astrophysics and my PhD is on the topic of quantum entanglement.

"The thing is, I don't think that the Bohmian formulation of quantum mechanics is correct..."
Hahaha - Not necessarily saying I do. Actually, it would seem quite moronic to suppose that waves exhibit one interference pattern in a macroscopic system - like H2O through a barrier; yet microscopically exhibit a similar pattern but based on a fundamentally different notion of wave/particle propagation.

I guess a few of the things I like about Bohmian when considering EPR paradox is that:
1. We can do away with measurement - decoherence, uncertainties.
2. We eliminate some difficult aspects of causality - hidden variables.
And when considering time or temporality:
- we have the notion that the "data" is continuous with the movement,
and not simply some probability function that collapses due to possibly random hidden variables.

I'm playing with some of these ideas for a short 5000 word paper - so it's more of an intellectual exercise, and not anything serious like my Grad Studies.

Quote: "Quantum fields in curved space-time has been actually been partly worked out already and it's a good first approximation to quantum gravity." Yummy!

So cool that you've managed to diversify munching on a little astro & now a lot of quantum.

I should jet... it seems obvious that I'm a bit hungry. Hahaha.
Thanks again for the text recommendations... I'll be digging into them over the summer break.