Combining General Relativity with Quantum Mechanics Yields Infinities?

Question

When General Relativity theory (GR) is mathematically mixed with equations for Quantum Mechanics (QMs), more often than not, infinities arise. Why? Could these infinities actually be useful information that is trying to communicate something significant about the laws governing nature? One has to wonder at just what point does GR breaks down when combining QMs? Is it at the atomic level, or on the order of molecules? Could it be that GR and QMs express the same information but in two different kinds of formats and, are just a duality of one another? If GR and QMs are just dualities with GR representing the large version of its duality, QMs; and, QMs representing the small version of its duality, GR, do we really even need to combine them to understand the forces in this universe? Could it be that GR and QMs are to each other what M-theory is to the 5 versions of string theory? The infinities may be telling us that we need to rethink our whole approach to GR/QMs unification.

Answer 1

To answer your question, I say "yes", we may need to rethink our whole approach to GR/QP unification. While string theory does a great job of doing away with the infinities, it also comes with a HUGE problem : because of the infintesimal size of strings, we cannot now - and may never be able to - provide observational evidence that they truly exist. I have no idea how to resolve the issue (gimme a break - if Einstein, Hawking, and others couldn't) but I tend to think there is something metaphysical that is missing from the current equations. I have read several books that try to dismiss the "observer" effect, but none of them have completely accounted for it. Based on that, and other things like nonlocality, I feel there is some deeper, hidden truth that we cannot see because we cannot let go of our notions of what should and should not be (no Zep pun intended),

Answer 2

Infinities arise all the time in QM without the aid of GR. The typical response is to "normalize" and throw them all away (since predictions of QM depend on ratios of probabilities, it makes no difference if a constant is added--- but throwing away infinity is indeed bending the rules a bit). basically, the infinite quantities are all constants, and do not include variables of the motion, so they are thrown away.

This bothers a lot of people (even though the predictions of the theory are nevertheless always correct) and the hope is that when combined with GR, the infinities will disappear and everyone will be happy.

String Theory gets rid of the infinities by allowing the interactions to take place spread over a small area, instead of occurring at a single point. This takes the extra terms down from infinity to something finite and constant, which is then completely allowed to be thrown out.

Answer 3

String Theory is riddled with contradictions and confusing multi -dimensions, it will not gain acceptance. You are trying to solve a problem that the most famous physicists in history have failed to do. When mathematics is used to explore a theory, infinities are bound to arise, ignore them, they don't exist in the real world. Let's look at the, 'The universe has no centre, thing.' If this is a statement of fact, how was it possible for science to track the galaxies back to the singularity of the big bang? Is it not possible to imagine that the background radiation that is observed from any point in space is actually the remains of the initial particles that were created in the original expansion the singularity? This would explain why this radiation is everywhere in space and in fact we are seeing the beginning of time. Because the only thing that existed in the beginning was pure energy that condensed into matter and that matter carried the trillions of degrees of heat that must have been stored in the mass of these particles.

Answer 4

Quantum mechanics applies to micro ranges and relativity thought applies to great ranges. Then, they're specific theories of the final thought of mechanics. So, they are able to't be the comparable as they're. yet as quickly as we evaluate each variable in the two theories, they're the comparable. yet for that's no longer sensible and not substantial, we exchange them to the place they are able to unquestionably provide result by ability of neglecting unimportant variables by using fact the case could be and are available up with 2 theories.