9 Mar
2010
9 Mar
'10
3:41 p.m.
On Mar 9, 2010, at 9:34 AM, John Meacham wrote:
Hmm.. I thought something interesting happened on the scale of the plank time, 10^-44 seconds or so. Or is that only relevant to our ability to _measure_ things at that scale and not the continuity of time itself as far as QM is concerned?
Quantum mechanics itself does not have a natural time scale at which "interesting things" start to happen, but some theories built using quantum mechanics do. It helps if you think of quantum mechanics as being like Newton's laws: it is not a theory itself so much as a metatheory that provides ground rules for how to construct theories of nature. (And yes, I actually am a quantum physicist. :-) ) Cheers, Greg