The future and past as Complimentary systems

[TrappedLight]

Is there such a thing as a past, present and future?

If there is Einstein was wrong. And if there isn't, there is also an implication of the past and future in such they become complimentary.

Albert, Aharonov, and D'Amato (ADD) came together (around 25 years ago) to write a paper in which science seems to have generally forgotten about. You can violate the uncertainty principle!

So how do you violate a cornerstone princple of QM? Remember, in short it means that we cannot know everything about the future, because physical states in the present are represented by complimentary observables,

If anyone is interested in the mathematics of observables, observables are represented by Hermitian Matrices which are strictly positive. Anything which can be observed are always represented by Hermitian matrices. Observables, like position and momentum are coupled in such a way, they are in fact Fourier Transforms of each other. This in fact appears to be a general rule giving rise to a whole cascade of complimentary systems.

In ADD's paper, they make an argument for a condition in time: There appears to be a boundary in which we call the past, present and of course, the future. Apparently you could in theory gather as much information about a system as you would like, even in the face of the uncertainty principle, but it involves what they call Two-Time Measurements.

The way you do this, is by measuring one part of a system in the present and then later collect the information about another observable in the future and you can know in complete certainty both observables here in the present. So suppose, someone measures the position of a particle, the idea is in the future you can make a measurement of it's momentum and these two-time measurements will give you the information you need.

In his book, Parallel Universes, professor Wolf argues that the future and the past become complimentary to each other. Interestingly, I can prove that idea in a very very simple mathematical way.

If [math]t_0[/math] is the past and [math]t_1[/math] is the present then the present can be given as the past including a time delay;

[math]t_1 = t_0 + [t_1 - t_0][/math]

so if we let [math]D = [t_1 - t_0][/math] represent a time delay, which appears as the difference between the present time and the past time then we may rewrite this as

[math]t_1 = t_0 + D[/math]

is the present collection of information and the past information is collected as

[math]t_0 = t_1 - D[/math]

The future collection of information is the conjugate of the past

[math]t_2 = t_1 + D[/math]

Which appears like a logical statement to the other identities.

It should be noted, that this theory treats time as a symmetric system. It also has huge implications in temporal physics, invoving specifically the Transactional Interpretation of physics.

Using Absorber theory, we can describe the wave function (of the universe) as a retarded and advanced wave form. Also called echo waves and offer waves, they send information throughout the boundaries of what we would call the past, present and future.

It would mean the present is in fact a ''product'' of the offer and echo wave [math]\psi \psi^{\dagger}[/math], a present is ''sandwiched'' bewteen the complimentary past and future.

The striking problems is that it would treat worldlines differently than General Relativity, they would not be static. Time would exist in the universe, meaning the Wheeler de Witt equation, a consequence of unifying quantum mechanics and General Relativity together, would be somehow wrong. Time would have a global feature as well, something which General Relativity forbids.

Albert, Aharonov, and D'Amato ''Curious New Statistical Prediction of Quantum Mechanics''

http://www.fqxi.org/data/essay-contest-files/Minguzzi_timecontest.pdf

(general relativity ultimately doesn't allow a global time description when unified with quantum mechanics. The paper above seems to imply the absence of a global time admits singularities.)

Edited September 28, 2013 by TrappedLight