In a revolutionary new book, a theoretical physicist attacks the foundations of modern scientific theory, including the notion of time, as he shares evidence of ...

Two definitions of Mach’s principle are proposed. Both are related to gauge theory, are universal in scope and amount to formulations of causality that take into account the relational nature of position, time, and size. One of them leads directly to general relativity and may have relevance to the problem of creating a quantum theory of gravity.

The most obvious thing about the universe in which we find ourselves is its structure. Before the scientific revolution, the instinctive reaction of thinkers to the existence of perceived structure was to find a direct reason for that structure. This is reflected above all in the Pythagorean notion of the well-ordered cosmos: the cosmos has the structure it does because that is the best structure it could have. In fact, that is what the word cosmos really means—primarily order, but also (...) decoration, embellishment, or dress. Kepler and Galileo were no less entranced by the beauty of the world than was Pythagoras, and they formulated their ideas in the overall conceptual framework of the well-ordered cosmos. However, both studied the world so intently that they actually identified aspects of motion that fairly soon led to the complete overthrow of such a notion of cosmos. The laws of the new physics were found to determine not the actual structure of the universe, but the way in which structure changes from instant to instant. Ultimately, no explanation is provided for the currently observed structure; it is simply attributed to an initial structure that was never fashioned by the laws of nature but merely continually refashioned thereafter. The initial and boundary conditions for our universe lie outside the purview of science. But all of the structure we observe around us must ultimately be traced back to those mysterious initial and boundary conditions. (shrink)

It is suggested, following a proposal made recently by Smolin, that the most fundamental law of the universe takes this form: Among the set of all possible universes compatible with an irreducibly minimal set of structural constraints, the actually realized universe is the one which maximizes a mathematically well-defined number (the variety) that measures the structural variety of the universe (in the totality of its history). This gives expression to Leibniz's idea that the actual universe gives “the greatest variety possible, (...) but with the greatest possible order.” Two models are proposed in which the idea can be realized and its consequences tested; both are discrete in nature and satisfy highly nonlocal laws. In such a scheme a unique (finite) universe is called into being by the fundamental requirement of maximal variety (for given definition of the variety), which it is conjectured could have such a powerful ordering effect that space, time, the currently known laws of physics, and the observed structure of the universe could all appear as emergent consequences of the single underlying law. (shrink)