Lee Smolin Quotes
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In the theory of electric fields it is assumed that points have meaning. ...Physicists using general relativity... cannot speak of a point, except by naming some features of the field lines that will uniquely distinguish that point. ...the network of relationships evolve with time... constantly changing.
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Combine general relativity and quantum theory into a single theory that can claim to be the complete theory of nature. This is called the problem of quantum gravity.
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Thinking in time is not relativism but a form of relationalism... the truest description of something consists of specifying its relationships to other parts of the system it is part of.
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Having begun my life in science searching for the equation beyond time, I now believe that the deepest secret of the universe is that its essence rests in how it unfolds moment by moment in time.
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If we believe that the task of physics is the discovery of a timeless mathematical equation that captures every aspect of the universe, then we believe that the truth about the universe lies outside the universe.
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Is the flow of time something real, or might our sense of time passing be just an illusion that hides the fact that what is real is only a vast collection of memories?
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The suggestion was that a positive energy proof for general relativity could be gotten by restricting supergravity to its bosonic sector, which is general relativity.
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In quantum theory, distance is inverse to energy, because you need particles of very high energy to probe very short distances. The inverse of the Planck energy is the Planck length.
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The geometry of space changes when things in the universe change their relationships to one another.
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We seem to have an ingrained idea that if something is valuable, it exists outside of time.
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I... propose that time and its passage are fundamental and real and the hopes and beliefs about timeless truths and timeless realms are mythology.
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Quantum theory can be described as a new kind of language to be used in a dialogue between us and the systems we study with our instruments. ...It tells us nothing about what the world would be like in our absence.
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There is no meaning to space that is independent of the relationships among real things of the world. ...Space is nothing apart from the things that exist. ...If we take out all the words we are not left with an empty sentence, we are left with nothing.
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We are the result of processes much more complicated than the small aspects of our lives and societies over which we have some control.