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Professor Raymond Brummelhuis

Professor Basil Hiley

Dr. Keith Bowden

Dr. Melvin Brown

Dr. Owen Maroney

Dr. David Robson

Dr. Stephen Wood

Robert Callaghan

Milan Glendza

Arleta Griffor

Ryo Morikawa

Lindon Neil

Graham Yendall

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Professor Basil J. Hiley has been awarded the Majorana Medal for 2012

 

Relativity, Quantum Gravity and Space-time Structures

Our group is continuing to explore the fundamental ideas introduced by the late Professor Bohm and is engaged on an extensive research programme covering a wide range of fundamental issues arising from an examination of the foundations of quantum mechanics and general relativity.

The central new notion introduced by quantum mechanics is not indeterminism, nor uncertainty, but wholeness. This new feature has been described by phrases such as "the non-separability of spatially separated systems", or more briefly as "quantum non-locality". These terms are actually inadequate expressions of the radical implications of the notion of wholeness and reflect a strong desire to cling to a reductionist philosophy. A radically new approach is needed, an approach that does not depend upon the Cartesian Order, but requires the introduction of new orders such as the implicate order and the generative order. Mathematical descriptions of these new orders are under active development at present.

It is now quite clear that if gravity is to be quantised successfully, a radical change in our understanding of spacetime will be needed. We begin from a more fundamental level by taking the notion of process as our starting point. Rather than beginning with a spacetime continuum, we introduce a structure process which, in some suitable limit, approximates to the continuum. We are exploring the possibility of describing this process by some form of non-commutative algebra, an idea that fits into the general ideas of the implicate order. In such a structure, the non-locality of quantum theory can be understood as a specific feature of this more general a-local background and that locality, and indeed time, will emerge as a special feature of this deeper a-local structure.


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