Quantum spacetime

<p>In <a href="/facts/Mathematical_physics/sLKg8T1G">mathematical physics</a>, the concept of quantum spacetime is a generalization of the usual concept of <a href="/facts/Spacetime/uRIN1x4b">spacetime</a> in which some variables that ordinarily <a href="/facts/Commutative_property/WaYxJLxd">commute</a> are assumed not to commute and form a different <a href="/facts/Lie_algebra/n2gAUkNq">Lie algebra</a>. The choice of that algebra varies from one theory to another. As a result of this change, some variables that are usually continuous may become discrete. Often only such discrete variables are called "quantized"; usage varies.
</p><p>The idea of quantum spacetime was proposed in the early days of quantum theory by <a href="/facts/Werner_Heisenberg/n4qzYvj4">Heisenberg</a> and <a href="/facts/Dmitri_Ivanenko/EbgISrnl">Ivanenko</a> as a way to eliminate infinities from quantum field theory. The germ of the idea passed from Heisenberg to <a href="/facts/Rudolf_Peierls/La4r1ISU">Rudolf Peierls</a>, who noted that electrons in a magnetic field can be regarded as moving in a quantum spacetime, and to <a href="/facts/Robert_Oppenheimer/qvgElLRC">Robert Oppenheimer</a>, who carried it to <a href="/facts/Hartland_Snyder/2MjwM6RU">Hartland Snyder</a>, who published the first concrete example. Snyder's <a href="/facts/Lie_algebra/n2gAUkNq">Lie algebra</a> was made simple by <a href="/facts/C._N._Yang/VjoM4raz">C. N. Yang</a> in the same year.
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Quantum spacetime open-in-new

Quantum spacetime