Theoretical Physicists Tackle the “Problem of Time”

Quantum mechanics has time as an absolute, but within the framework of general relativity, a theory posited by Albert Einstein back in 1915, time isn’t static, but rather fundamentally dynamic. Due to this core difference, there has been no way to reconcile these two competing narratives. In fact, in a series of experiments performed back in the ’70s by scientists John Wheeler and Bruce DeWitt (known as the Wheeler-DeWitt equation), an attempt at unifying these two theories resulted in time disappearing from their equations, resulting in a fundamentally timeless Universe. This is what is more commonly know as the “problem of time.” From this, some have concluded that time is, in essence, a fictitious variable and that we’re incorrectly conflating time with other physical variables of which we are not yet aware.

But a group of theoretical physicists working on quantum gravity have recently provided an outline of what that reconciliation may look like. Full disclosure: theoretical physics is not my forte, but for those interested, check out Wired for the full article.