This work reflects on mechanics as an epistemological framework on the state of a physical system to regard dynamics as the distribution of mechanical properties over spacetime coordinates. The resulting distribution is taken to be the partition function of the relevant physical quantities over a spacetime parametrized by coordinates. The partition yields a probabilistic interpretation that, based on Feynman's path integral formulation, leads to a dynamical law that generalizes the Schrödinger equation. A variety of systems can be put into the form proposed here, including particles in potentials, as well as matter and interaction fields. The main advantage of the proposed framework is that it presents the space of properties separately from that of the space of coordinates, whereas the dynamical law can be interpreted as the equation of two differential structures, one from each of these spaces. The resulting framework shows possibilities to further study physical quantities that relate directly to the spacetime coordinates, whose dynamics is best described in thermodynamical, rather than Hamiltonian, terms. A notable example is the theory of general relativity, in which the case of a scalar field in a Robertson-Walker metric is explored.
This work reflects on mechanics as an epistemological framework on the state of a physical system to regard dynamics as the distribution of mechanical properties over spacetime coordinates. The resulting distribution is taken to be the partition function of the relevant physical quantities over a spacetime parametrized by coordinates. The partition yields a probabilistic interpretation that, based on Feynman's path integral formulation, leads to a dynamical law that generalizes the Schrödinger equation. A variety of systems can be put into the form proposed here, including particles in potentials, as well as matter and interaction fields. The main advantage of the proposed framework is that it presents the space of properties separately from that of the space of coordinates, whereas the dynamical law can be interpreted as the equation of two differential structures, one from each of these spaces. The resulting framework shows possibilities to further study physical quantities that relate directly to the spacetime coordinates, whose dynamics is best described in thermodynamical, rather than Hamiltonian, terms. A notable example is the theory of general relativity, in which the case of a scalar field in a Robertson-Walker metric is explored.
This work reflects on mechanics as an epistemological framework on the state of a physical system to regard dynamics as the distribution of mechanical properties over spacetime coordinates. The resulting distribution is taken to be the partition function of the relevant physical quantities over a space-time parametrized by coordinates. The partition yields a probabilistic interpretation that, based on Feynman’s path integral formulation, leads to a dynamical law that generalizes the Schrödinger equation. A variety of systems can be put into the form proposed here, including particles in potentials, as well as matter and interaction fields. The main advantage of the proposed framework is that it presents the space of properties separately from that of the space of coordinates, whereas the dynamical law can be interpreted as the equation of two differential structures, one from each of these spaces. The resulting framework shows possibilities to further study physical quantities that relate directly to the space-time coordinates, whose dynamics is best described in thermodynamical, rather than Hamiltonian, terms. A notable case being the theory of general relativity.
This work reflects on mechanics as an epistemological framework on the state of a physical system to regard dynamics as the distribution of mechanical properties over spacetime coordinates. The resulting distribution is taken to be the partition function of the relevant physical quantities over a space-time parametrized by coordinates. The partition yields a probabilistic interpretation that, based on Feynman’s path integral formulation, leads to a dynamical law that generalizes the Schrödinger equation. A variety of systems can be put into the form proposed here, including particles in potentials, as well as matter and interaction fields. The main advantage of the proposed framework is that it presents the space of properties separately from that of the space of coordinates, whereas the dynamical law can be interpreted as the equation of two differential structures, one from each of these spaces. The resulting framework shows possibilities to further study physical quantities that relate directly to the space-time coordinates, whose dynamics is best described in thermodynamical, rather than Hamiltonian, terms. A notable case being the theory of general relativity.
This work reflects on mechanics as an epistemological framework on the state of a physical system to regard dynamics as the distribution of mechanical properties over spacetime coordinates. The resulting distribution is taken to be the partition function of the relevant physical quantities over a space-time parametrized by coordinates. The partition yields a probabilistic interpretation that, based on Feynman’s path integral formulation, leads to a dynamical law that generalizes the Schrödinger equation. A variety of systems can be put into the form proposed here, including particles in potentials, as well as matter and interaction fields. The main advantage of the proposed framework is that it presents the space of properties separately from that of the space of coordinates, whereas the dynamical law can be interpreted as the equation of two differential structures, one from each of these spaces. The resulting framework shows possibilities to further study physical quantities that relate directly to the space-time coordinates, whose dynamics is best described in thermodynamical, rather than Hamiltonian, terms. A notable case being the theory of general relativity.
Every vertex of the magic cube of physics discussed so far introduced a major element in the development of physics and the whole of science. Mechanics introduced the basic concept of equations of motion, or time-evolution of a physical system given certain initial condition and the associated idea of determinism, even with its generalization in the form of chaos, the dependence of the outcomes of the temporal evolution on the initial conditions. These concepts taken for many particles, or elements of a physical system, led to the probabilistic description of many particle systems, in the realm of statistical physics and thermodynamics, whereby the averages over time of various observable quantities were related to the ensemble averages, that involve classical, so-called Kolmogorov, probability measures, at least for certain “equilibrium” situations. The second law of thermodynamics introduced the concept of entropy and its probabilistic increase, the first truly emergent, probabilistic law in physics (temperature and pressure, being other emergent quantities, apart from entropy, the measure of disorder of a statistical system). In the context of Newtonian gravity, one gets, at least in retrospect the geometric description of gravity in non-relativistic, Galilean spacetime. Galilean relativity, based on the asymmetric mixing of space and time, with the absolute, universal time, true for all observers, gets generalized in special theory of relativity to observer dependent space and observer dependent time, viewed as “slices” of a new concept of spacetime, with the new concept of causal structure, that distinguish timelike, null and spacelike events. This in turn is made into a full dynamical geometric structure of spacetime with a relativistic description of gravity stemming from curvature of spacetime, and a dynamical causal structure, tied to gravity. In our next story, the story of quantum theory, we will encounter fundamental, intrinsic probabilities, that can interfere, unlike the classical probabilities of statistical thermodynamics, and which are consistent with equations of motion of individual elements, and not, as in statistical thermodynamics, with temporal averages over the time evolution of many elements. This is the big new lesson of quantum theory, that transcends the lessons of classical spacetime physics.
This paper elucidates the dual structure of the Schrödinger dynamics in two correlated stages: (1) We first derive the real-valued Schrödinger equation from scratch without referring to classical mechanics, wave mechanics, nor optics, and thereby attain a concrete and clear interpretation of the Schrödinger (wave) function. Beginning with a factorization of the density distribution function of the particles to two component vectors in configuration space, we impose very simple conditions on them such as translational invariance of space-time and the conservation of flux under a given potential function. A real-valued path-integral is formulated as a Green function for the real-valued Schrödinger equation. (2) We then study a quantum stochastic path dynamics in a manner compatible with the Schrödinger equation. The relation between them is like the Langevin dynamics with the diffusion equation. Each quantum path describes a \textquotedblleft trajectory\textquotedblright\ in configuration space representing, for instance, a singly launched electron in the double-slit experiment that leaves a spot one by one at the measurement board, while accumulated spots give rise to the fringe pattern as predicted by the absolute square of the Schrödinger function. We start from the relationship between the Ito stochastic differential equation, the Feynman-Kac formula, and the associated parabolic partial differential equations, to one of which\ the Schrödinger equation is transformed. The physical significance of the quantum intrinsic stochasticity and the indirect correlation among the quantum paths and so on are discussed. The self-referential nonlinear interrelationship between the Schrödinger functions (regarded as a whole) and the quantum paths (as its parts) is identified as the ultimate mystery in quantum dynamics.
Quantum field theory is the traditional solution to the problems inherent in melding quantum mechanics with special relativity. However, it has also long been known that an alternative first-quantized formulation can be given for relativistic quantum mechanics, based on the parametrized paths of particles in spacetime. Because time is treated similarly to the three space coordinates, rather than as an evolution parameter, such a spacetime approach has proved particularly useful in the study of quantum gravity and cosmology. This paper shows how a spacetime path formalism can be considered to arise naturally from the fundamental principles of the Born probability rule, superposition, and Poincaré invariance. The resulting formalism can be seen as a foundation for a number of previous parametrized approaches in the literature, relating, in particular, “off-shell” theories to traditional on-shell quantum field theory. It reproduces the results of perturbative quantum field theory for free and interacting particles, but provides intriguing possibilities for a natural program for regularization and renormalization. Further, an important consequence of the formalism is that a clear probabilistic interpretation can be maintained throughout, with a natural reduction to nonrelativistic quantum mechanics.