Re:How Many Elementary Particles Are There, Really?
by Noaidi on Sunday June 28, 2026 @12:28PM
(#48708850)
> space and time can be measured, and they are not quantized.
Yet…
Because we do not have the formulas does not mean they are not quantized.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/is-time-quantized...
Re:How Many Elementary Particles Are There, Really?
by tsimionescu on Sunday June 28, 2026 @02:30PM
(#48710071)
Again, our current theories all agree that space and time are continuous, not quantized. Quantized space or time are not consistent with either QFT or GR.
Now, we do know that QFT and GR are not consistent with each other, so at least one new theory is necessary, at least one of them must be wrong. So the new theory could involve quantized space or time - but it could very well not. We don't know at the moment, and all we know is that our best theories, limited as they may be, require continuous space and time (and other quantities).
This is a fundamental misunderstanding. Measurement (which is a precisely defined mathematical concept) is not the same thing as quantization. For a very basic example, in all known physics theories, including QFT, SR, and GR, space and time can be measured, and they are not quantized. In fact, there is no theory compatible with SR in which space and time can be quantized, given the nature of the Lorenz transform: SR predicts continuous length contraction from the PoV of observers moving at any velocity relative to each other; for any distance of length 1, some other observer can exist for which the length would be 1/x, with x as a real number.