Read a thought provoking hypothesis proposed by Swiss physicist Nicolas Gisin in four papers he authored that questions the widely accepted block universe model of Relativity on a mathematical basis, centered on the proposition that infinitely precise real numbers do not exist in nature. Mathematics assumes the existence of infinitely precise real numbers as a given; Nicolas Gisin questions that assumption. Instead Grisin argues that a hundred year old branch of mathematics called Intuitionust Mathematics that rejects the existence of numbers with infinite digitsvof precision is used to describe the evolution of physical systems, it becomes clear that time really passes and that new information is being created. The block universe model of spacetime argues for a static -- pre-ordained -- universe in which past, present and future are illusions and all that is always has been. Modern information theory however shows that information is physical, it requires both energy and space. He questions how a block universe hypothesis could contain -- essentially infinite -- all the information encoded in the block universe in the initial state at the moment of the big bang. Intuitionist mathematics accepts the reality of irrational values such as say pi that have an infinite series of digits of precision because a formula exists that can in theory calculate its value to any degree of precision. But say we have an arbitrary value x that is initially measured to some point of precision of x=0.49999 (the example given) and that this value unfurls to greater and greater degrees of precision. Perhaps the series of 9s continues forever and thus x is exactly equal to 1/2, but if at any point a digit of lower value is encountered this quantity will forever be less than 1/2. Before that happens we cannot know what x is equal to, our knowledge depends on this unfolding sequence. "But before that happens, when all we know is 0.4999, “we don’t know whether or not a digit other than 9 will ever show up,” explained Carl Posy, a philosopher of mathematics at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and a leading expert on intuitionist math. “At the time we consider this x, we cannot say that x is less than ½, nor can we say that x equals ½.” The proposition “x is equal to ½” is not true, and neither is its negation. The law of the excluded middle doesn’t hold." "In other words, the world is indeterministic; the future is open. Time, Gisin said, “is not unfolding like a movie in the cinema. It is really a creative unfolding. The new digits really get created as time passes.”" Here is the link to the article, for those interested: https://www.quantamagazine.org/does-time-really-flow-new-clues-come-from-a-century-old-approach-to-math-20200407/
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