Are there hidden connections between some of the most mysterious phenomena in modern physics, including gravity, quantum mechanics, and the nature of time itself?
That is the premise behind new research tackling some of the most perplexing problems that continue to baffle physicists. According to the new findings, the enduring mystery of time could hold a key to resolving them.
This, according to a recent study by an international team of physicists funded in part by the Foundational Questions Institute (FQxI), which applied an unconventional approach to a long-standing measurement problem in quantum mechanics involving what are known as “quantum collapse models.”
The Strange Side of Physics
Not everything in the physical world obeys the intuitive laws of motion and mechanics formulated by luminaries like Isaac Newton. Over the past century, a growing number of discoveries have revealed a stranger side to the natural world—one that operates at the smallest scales, yet presents some of the biggest challenges in modern physics.
These include enduring mysteries such as dark matter and dark energy, the true nature of gravity, and quantum phenomena such as superposition, which describes how particles, such as electrons, can exist in multiple states simultaneously until measured or observed, at which point they collapse into a single, definite state.
Although quantum phenomena exhibit such oddities, the same cannot be said of everyday objects. This discrepancy presents a major challenge for physicists, who have spent decades attempting to reconcile the visible, macroscopic world with the unseen quantum realm.
A Novel Approach
In the new study, physicists took an unconventional approach to addressing quantum measurement problems by employing “quantum collapse models.” Their work revealed something unexpected: applying these models may have important implications for how time behaves—and how precisely it can be measured.
Nicola Bortolotti, the study’s lead investigator and a PhD student at the Enrico Fermi Museum and Research Center (CREF) in Rome, Italy, says he and his colleagues began with a fundamental observation.
“What we did was to take seriously the idea that collapse models may be linked to gravity,” Bortolotti said.
If this assumption proved correct, Bortolotti and his colleagues realized it would carry broader implications, particularly regarding the nature of time.
“What does this imply for time itself?” Bortolotti asks.
Time is of the Essence
One clue comes from decades-old research on spontaneous wavefunction collapse, a phenomenon used to describe the multi-state behavior of quantum systems in superposition. Beginning in the 1980s, researchers developed models to explain why wavefunction collapse might occur independently of observation.
These approaches differ significantly from conventional interpretations of quantum mechanics, offering predictions that are more consistent—and potentially testable in the laboratory.
With this in mind, Bortolotti and his team explored a possible link between collapse models and gravity. One leading theory, known as the Diósi-Penrose model, similarly proposes a connection between gravity and wavefunction collapse.
Building on this, the team established a link between the Diósi-Penrose model and another framework, Continuous Spontaneous Localization, and, from there, identified connections between the two models and subtle variations in gravitational spacetime.
Constraining the Measurement of Time
At its core, the study suggests that if collapse models accurately describe the underlying physics of phenomena such as gravity, then there may be fundamental limits on how precisely time can be measured—albeit at an extremely small scale.
“The uncertainty is many orders of magnitude below anything we can currently measure, so it has no practical consequences for everyday timekeeping,” says Catalina Curceanu, research director at the Laboratori Nazionali di Frascati of the National Institute for Nuclear Physics, who was also one of the study’s co-authors.
While these findings have no practical impact on timekeeping, they point to something more fundamental in our understanding of physics: the ongoing search for a unified framework that reconciles quantum mechanics with gravity and time.
Curceanu notes that in quantum mechanics, “time is treated as an external, classical parameter that is not affected by the quantum system being studied.” However, this contrasts with Einstein’s theory of general relativity, where time and space are deeply intertwined and can be influenced by energy and mass.
At the heart of the new research is the suggestion that quantum mechanics may represent only one component of a deeper, more comprehensive theory that physicists have yet to fully uncover. Still, the team’s work marks a meaningful step toward that goal, shedding light on the potential connections between collapse models, gravity, time, and other unresolved phenomena.
“Our work shows that even radical ideas about quantum mechanics can be tested against precise physical measurements,” Curceanu said in a statement, although adding that “reassuringly, timekeeping remains one of the most stable pillars of modern physics.”
The team’s recent paper, “Fundamental limits on clock precision from spacetime uncertainty in quantum collapse models” by Nicola Bortolotti, Catalina Curceanu, Lajos Diósi, Simone Manti, and Kristian Piscicchia, appeared in Physical Review Research.
Micah Hanks is the Editor-in-Chief and Co-Founder of The Debrief. A longtime reporter on science, defense, and technology with a focus on space and astronomy, he can be reached at micah@thedebrief.org. Follow him on X @MicahHanks, and at micahhanks.com.