Accession Number:
ADA106362
Title:
Nature Abhors an Empty Vacuum,
Descriptive Note:
Corporate Author:
MASSACHUSETTS INST OF TECH CAMBRIDGE ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE LAB
Personal Author(s):
Report Date:
1981-08-01
Pagination or Media Count:
15.0
Abstract:
Imagine a crystalline world of tiny, discrete cells, each knowing only what its nearest neighbors do. Each volume of space contains only a finite amount of information, because space and time come in discrete units. In such a universe, well construct analogs of particles and fields -- and ask what it would mean for these to satisfy constraints like conservation of momentum. In each case classical mechanics will break down -- on scales both small and large, and strange phenomena emerge a maximal velocity, a slowing of internal clocks, a bound on simultaneous measurement, and quantum-like effects in very weak, or intense fields.
Descriptors:
Subject Categories:
- Crystallography
- Quantum Theory and Relativity