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Topos theoretic approach to space and time

Goro C. Kato

pp. 313-324

At the level of the Planck scale (around (10^{-33}{ ext {cm}} )) and beyond, i.e., a sub-Planckian domain (less than (10^{-43}) s after so called big bang), the usual concept of space and time becomes uncertain where the gravitational field might be simply a quantum fluctuation of a vacuum. Elementary particles or strings, the fundamental entities for our universe, are difficult to be considered at such a microcosm level. An emergence occurs when a physical phenomenon is the consequence of organization from the given local information data. Namely, we cannot tell any difference between electrons in a human brain and in an apple. This is just as we cannot tell any difference between a note in a piece by Mozart and a note in a piece by Bach. We use the concept of a sheaf as the device from local to global transition. In order to formulate space and time for those microcosm domains in terms of sheaves providing a background free notion in the sense of quantum gravity, the notions of the associated (pre)sheaves of time, space, and matter are introduced in the following sense. For a particle (overline{m}), we assign an associated presheaf m with (overline{m}). A presheaf is by definition a contravariant functor from a site (i.e., a category with a Grothendieck topology) to a product category. This is the notion of the temporal topos theory abbreviated as t-topos theory developed in [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]. For space and time, we associate a combined sheaf (omega =left( kappa , au ight) ) where space sheaf (kappa ) and time sheaf ( au ) are considered to be t-entangled in the sense that both sheaves behave as one sheaf. With the notions of sheaves and categories, we will give the formulations for the uncertainty principle, particle-wave duality, and t-entanglement together with the relativistic concept of a (t ) -light cone (or an ur-light cone) valid in macrocosm and microcosm. As a consequence of the topos theoretic formulations, the possible scenario of pre and primitive stages of a universe, i.e., ur-big bangs in terms of t-topos theory will be provided. The main concepts to formulate these notions are coming from categorical notions of a micro-decomposition of a presheaf and a micro-covering of a t-site object.

Publication details

DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-44418-5_25

Full citation:

Kato, G. C. (2017)., Topos theoretic approach to space and time, in S. Wuppuluri & G. Ghirardi (eds.), Space, time and the limits of human understanding, Dordrecht, Springer, pp. 313-324.

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