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John Wheeler made the statement - “Time is what prevents everything from happening at once”
However, at a quantum level (and other levels too, but let's focus on quantum and disregard gravity for now) particles can only change state if they interact with other particles. The particles that carry the interaction force cannot exceed the speed of light so "everything" (meaning interactions) cannot happen at the same time because of a bound on the speed of the particles that carry the force of the interaction. This seems to imply that everything doesn't happen at once because of a finite speed of light and we interpret the sequencing of interactions as time.
Since John Wheeler knows more about this than I do, I believe I have missed something here.
Could someone help me out?
However, at a quantum level (and other levels too, but let's focus on quantum and disregard gravity for now) particles can only change state if they interact with other particles. The particles that carry the interaction force cannot exceed the speed of light so "everything" (meaning interactions) cannot happen at the same time because of a bound on the speed of the particles that carry the force of the interaction. This seems to imply that everything doesn't happen at once because of a finite speed of light and we interpret the sequencing of interactions as time.
Since John Wheeler knows more about this than I do, I believe I have missed something here.
Could someone help me out?