Prehistory and background:
The Standard model, based on quantum mechanics and quanta of action, does not include only gravity from the four known physical interactions. Einstein’s general relativity, experimentally corroborated not less than both standard model and quantum mechanics, is the commonly accepted theory of gravity. Einstein’s resistance to quantum mechanics, continued all his his life, is well-known. Quantum mechanics and general relativity seem to contradict to each other fundamentally, in their principles:
General relativity supposes continuity and even smoothness for physical motion and thus action, even guaranteed by a fundamental constant such as the speed of light in vacuum. On the contrary, quantum mechanics postulated just the opposite: discreteness for physical action and thus motion also even guaranteed by another fundamental constant, the Planck constant. Both theories cannot be true at the same time, but nevertheless both are equally well confirmed by experiments.
Consequently, some of the premises of that alleged contradiction should be false. All research for quantum gravitation is based on the hypothesis that the wrong premise is the only seeming smoothness of gravitational interaction and thus of the motion and action caused by it. However, any theory of quantum gravitation, which might rival to general relativity even partly, does not exist after almost centurial efforts of the best physicians in the world.
The attempts for a satisfactory theory of quantum gravity continue yet and yet by means of more and more complicated mathematical models. Anyway, one can suggest that the wrong premise for the above contradiction is not correctly determined:
Thesis: Gravitation is not quantizable in principle. So, both general relativity and quantum mechanics (and the derivative standard model) are true. The contradiction between them might be resolved if one admit that both describe one and the same from different viewpoints, and therefore a more general viewpoint should exist, from which they are equivalent to each other. The viewpoint of quantum information might be that.
A few comments of the thesis:
The two viewpoints might be roughly featured as outside and inside one and the same physical system: Outside, it is a single one as a whole and can change only continuously. Inside, it consists of discrete parts, i.e. quanta. The same change seeming continuously outside is expressed as a change of the number of the parts if they are postulated as equal as the quanta of action. Then, physical change should be measured as the quantity of action. Furthermore, it is continuous from the viewpoint outside the system, but discrete inside the system. The quantity of action is what is conserved in the transition between the two viewpoints.
Information is another natural quantity for the same transition to be measured. Indeed, the unit of information, a bit can be considered as the less unit unifying a whole (an “empty cell”) and its two equal parts (either “0” or “1” which can be recorded in the empty cell). Quantum information refers to a system with infinitely many parts. Information, quantum information, and action are equitable in quantum mechanics and general relativity.
А few main arguments for the thesis:
- A comparison and unification of the complex Hilbert space underlying quantum mechanics and the pseudo-Riemannian space-time, from which general relativity is formally deduced.
- An interpretation of the above unification in terms of quantum information.
- A few set-theory considerations concerning the conditions for the unification of the discrete and continuous (smooth) in a mathematical sense.
Key words: action, general relativity, quantum gravity, quantum information, quantum mechanics
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