Finite Nature
Edward Fredkin
Department of Physics
Boston University
Boston, MA, 02215, USA
Abstract
A fundamental question about time, space and the inhabitants thereof is "Are things smooth or grainy?" Some things are obviously grainy (matter, charge, angular momentum); for other things (space, time, momentum, energy) the answers are not clear. Finite Nature is the assumption that, at some scale, space and time are discrete and that the number of possible states of every finite volume of space-time is finite. In other words Finite Nature assumes that there is no thing that is smooth or continuous and that there are no infinitesimals. If finite nature is true, then there are certain consequences that are independent of the scale.