A century ago, relativity and quantum theory replaced Newton’s vision of the universe as a big machine created by God with a world of malleable time, curved space, and quantum fuzziness. Today, these theories dominate their respective cosmic and sub-atomic domains, and neither has ever been found to be wrong, but they aren’t compatible so:
“Mankind has uncovered two extremely efficient theories: one that describes our universe’s structure (Einstein’s gravity: the theory of general relativity), and one that describes everything our universe contains (quantum field theory), and these two theories won’t talk to each other.” (Galfard, 2016).
This schism between relativity and quantum theory divided physics a century ago and it is the same today. It is as if our reality has two different rule books, one for the very small and another for the very large, with nothing in common. The rules of the macrocosm don’t work for the microcosm but if the latter produces the former, it shouldn’t be so!
The divide persists because for small objects, gravity is weak and so can be ignored, while for large objects, quantum fuzziness can also be ignored. Also, trying to apply relativity to quantum points gives infinities, and the quantum field tricks used to justify particles fail for gravity.
What then divides these two great theories? Essentially, each makes an assumption that the other denies absolutely:
1. Quantum theory: Assumes that quantum states evolve on a fixed space and time background (Smolin, 2006), but relativity assures us that isn’t so.
2. Relativity theory: Assumes that foreground objects follow fixed paths, but quantum theory assures us that isn’t so either.
Quantum theory assumes what relativity denies, that space and time are fixed, and relativity assumes what quantum theory denies, that objects follow a fixed path. Each exposes a false assumption of the other but ignores its own, so they are incompatible. How then can they be reconciled?
The resolution now proposed is simply that both theories are right, so both the foreground and the background of our reality can change because quantum reality generates both. A quantum field that generates matter, space, and time, can then unite relativity and quantum theory, as will be seen.