[Dirac magnetic monopoles & the fundamental nature of time] - A New Kind of Science: The NKS Forum

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Dirac magnetic monopoles & the fundamental nature of time

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Posted by: David Brown

“… according to cosmologists, magnetic monopoles should have been created during the Big Bang in vast numbers and should now be detectable; that they are not is known as ‘the monopole problem’.” — Graham Farmelo, “The Strangest Man: The Hidden Life of Paul Dirac, Mystic of the Atom” p. 431
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetic_monopole
What do Dirac magnetic monopoles have to do with the fundamental nature of time? In cosmology, the nature of time is an important issue. Consider 3 alternatives for the fundamental nature of time:
(1) Time is an absolute within some absolute Newtonian reference frame.
(2) Spacetime and energy obey Einstein’s equivalence principle.
(3) Sufficiently near to a black hole, spacetime fails, leading to the necessity of considering an informational substrate as postulated by Wolfram.
If we believe Wolfram’s idea that a mobile automaton gradually builds time, space, and energy from an informational substrate below the Planck scale, then should we reconsider Dirac’s argument for the existence of magnetic monopoles in terms of finite, digital nature?
Consider the following hypothesis of spacetime averaging:
A local average over spacetime is always physically valid unless spacetime fails.
In terms of physics, what is the precise meaning of the phrase “spacetime fails”? Answering the preceding question might require formulating a physically valid computational method for M-theory. Is there a finite, digital magnetic monopole in natural reality? If we believe the so-called hypothesis of spacetime averaging, then what might be wrong with Dirac’s argument for the existence of a magnetic monopole in quantum field theory as currently understood?
If spacetime does not fail, then a magnetic monopole would, according to the hypothesis of spacetime averaging, lead to a violation of Gauss’s law for magnetism. This violation might suggest that the informational structure governing photons in the theory of quantum electrodynamics (QED) is not entirely in accord with the theory as formulated by Feynman. Therefore, the detection of a magnetic monopole in spacetime as formulated in QED might suggest one of two basic alternatives. The two alternatives would be EITHER that spacetime fails in the region where the magnetic monopole was detected OR that the informational structure governing photons does not entirely agree with the informational structure governing photons as postulated in QED. Metaphorically, if the theory is a house of ideas, then is the problem in the basement or above the basement? In any case, should M-theorists carefully study Wolfram’s ideas on the informational structure which might underlie time, space, and energy?




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