- #1
rohanprabhu
- 414
- 2
I'm totally new to quantum mech... I've just started reading a few articles on that. I came across the 'Locality Principle' on wikipedia..
"The following idea characterises the relative independence of objects far apart in space (A and B): external influence on A has no direct influence on B; this is known as the Principle of Local Action, which is used consistently only in field theory. If this axiom were to be completely abolished, the idea of the existence of quasienclosed systems, and thereby the postulation of laws which can be checked empirically in the accepted sense, would become impossible."
- Albert Einstein
So my questions are:
i] What exactly does Einstein mean when he says 'far apart'?
ii] What does this imply for fields? Does it imply that all fields are inversely proportional to some power of separation i.e. [itex]F \propto \frac{1}{r^n}[/itex] such that the field vanishes at infinite seperation?
forgive me if the 2nd statement seems too vague to you.. as I'm still hooked to the classical model of physics...
"The following idea characterises the relative independence of objects far apart in space (A and B): external influence on A has no direct influence on B; this is known as the Principle of Local Action, which is used consistently only in field theory. If this axiom were to be completely abolished, the idea of the existence of quasienclosed systems, and thereby the postulation of laws which can be checked empirically in the accepted sense, would become impossible."
- Albert Einstein
So my questions are:
i] What exactly does Einstein mean when he says 'far apart'?
ii] What does this imply for fields? Does it imply that all fields are inversely proportional to some power of separation i.e. [itex]F \propto \frac{1}{r^n}[/itex] such that the field vanishes at infinite seperation?
forgive me if the 2nd statement seems too vague to you.. as I'm still hooked to the classical model of physics...