Recent Thinking about the Nature

of the Physical World: It from Bit“

JOHN ARCHIBALD WHEELER
Department of Physics
Princeton University
Princeton, New Jersey
University of Texas at Austin
Austin Texas 78712

Serge Korff is to be admired for his adventures within Russia and for
leaving it; for his leadership in the affairs of the New York Academy of
Science; and for his pioneering work in the realm of cosmic rays. All
mark him as an exceptional scientist. Would that he and I could walk and
talk once again, this time about advances on yet another frontier-the
nature of the physical world.

Among all the mysteries that still confront us in our probing of

nature, none present more challenge than these,
1. How come existence?
2. How come the quantum?
3. How come “one world” out of the registrations of many observer-
participants?

How can we move ahead on these foundational issues? Hardly better

than under the guidance of a working hypothesis. There is one that has
survived much winnowing. It animates and steers this report. This ac-
count therefore not only begins with questions. It ends with questions.
The central point? The thesis it from bit: every it, every particle, every
field of force, even the spacetime continuum itself, derives its way of
action and its very existence entirely, even if in some contexts indirectly,
from the detector-elicited answers to yes or no questions, binary choices,
bits. Otherwise stated, all things physical, all its (FIGS.1 and 2), must in
the end submit to an information-theoretic description.
Can rocks, life, and all we call existence be based on something so
immaterial as yes-no bits of information? Such an account, if ever we

“Adapted from a paper presented at the First Andrei Sakharov International

Physics Conference, Moscow, May 1991.
349
350 ANNALS NEW YORK ACADEMY OF SCIENCES

FIGURE 1. In the double-slit electron-interference experiment of the type in-

vented by Aharonov and Bohm: the interference fringes-fringes registered by
a full coverage of electron counters arrayed at the right, just off-page-ex-
perience a shift of relative phase, (electron charge)x(rnagnetic flux through the
domain bounded by the two electron paths)/ (li c), that reveals and measures the flux.
We reverse this language when we turn to the it-from-bit interpretation of
nature. The magnetic field, we say, and by extension every field and space
geometry itself, has no function, no significance, no existence except insofar as
it affects, directly or indirectly, the count of yes-or-no elementary quantum
registrations.

gain the insight to spell it out, cannot but leave us all as real as ever. The
photon already admits to description along this line. Does the photon
exist in the atom before the act of emission? No. In the detector after the
act of registration? No. Exist on its way from atom to detector? Pure talk.
Yet despite that talk the photon is as real as anything we know, whether
river, flame, DNA, or particle. No escape does the quantum principle
permit, Bohr tells us, from “a radical revision of our attitude as regards
physical reality” and a “fundamental modification of all ideas regarding
the absolute character of physical phenomena.” That’s the miracle of the
quantum principle. How come? And at the center of that miracle stands
complementarity (Box 1) with its ever amazing feature, “No question?
No answer!” (Box 2). That miracle: what secret of nature does it conceal?
To discover that secret, only nine years remain to us before Planck‘s
century will have run out!
Along the way of progress on these deep issues, one obstacle has
stood out dismayingly. Physics for long has proved unable to carry
through to the end the analysis of any already existing field theory
without recourse to renormalization, cutoff, or approximation. The last
WHEELER: THE NATURE OF THE PHYSICAL WORLD 351

FIGURE 2. A second example of it from bit. The it, the area of the horizon of a
black hole, expressed in units of the basic Bekenstein-Hawking area1Z13
4 (A G/c3)log2
is given by the bit count, N, of that black hole. Here N represents the number of
bits of information it would have taken to distinguish the initial configuration
of particles and fields that fell in to make this particular black hole from the
2N alternative quantum configurations that would have produced a black hole
externally identical to it.14This diagram is reproduced from Wheeler," p. 220.

few years, however, have seen a wonderful new development. Ash-

tekar? Jacobson and S m ~ l i nRovelli;
,~ and others, in advance after re-
markable advance over the past d e ~ a d ehave
, ~ won their way to a rep-
resentation of the quantum dynamics of geometry in terms of
loops-loops that reduce themselves to knots, and these knots are distin-
guishable6f7one from another by pure binary-digit numbers.
Spacetime geometry, among all the entities of physics, rates as the
one most challenging to try to subject to an information-theoreticanal-
ysis. Like every branch of 20th century physics, it submits to the quan-
tum principle. However, it offers for quantization the only truly funda-
mental dynamic system of which the foundation principles are
thoroughly explored and understood. It is only against the background
of spacetime that we know how even to begin to treat particle physics.
Spacetime dynamics by itself, on the other hand, needs no particles or
352 ANNALS NEW YORK ACADEMY OF SCIENCES

other fields to constitute a rich field of analysis. Thus pared-for con-

venience of presentation-geometrodynamics gives us gravity waves,
black holes made by implosion of gravity waves, gravitational geons, all
in the context of one or another cosmology curved up into closure by its
content of effective gravity-wave energy.
Spacetime geometry, moreover, does not rate as any esoteric branch
of physics. The grip of spacetime on mass-we know from Einstein's
battle-tested and still standard theory of 1915 (1)displays in action a star
actor on the scene of dynamics, (2) enforces the law of conservation of
total "mornenergy"ll in the crash of mass against mass, and (3)provides
the standards against which the very measurement of force first becomes
possible.

Box 1. PERSPECTIVES ON COMPLEMENTARITY:

WHAT IT IS, WHAT IT MEANS
Complementarity in brief: No question? No answer! (Box 2)
Bohr's early statement of the principle of complementarity:
'...any given application of classical concepts precludes the
simultaneous use of other classical concepts which in a
different connection are equally necessary for the elucidation of
the phenomena.'
' Einstein: 'You believe in a dice-playing God and I in perfect
iaws in the world of things existing as real objects ...."
Harald Hsffding's question regarding the familiar double-slit
interference experiment: Where can the light quantum be said to
be in its passage from point of entry to point of reception?
Bohr's response: "To be? To be? What does it mean, 'to be'?"
Observation creates the phenomenon observed? No
observation disturbs the phenomenon? No.
No elementary quantum phenomenon is a phenomenon until it
has been "brought to a close" by "an irreversible act of
Bm pl i f i c a t i o n ." (91
"...(l]t was long natural to regard the observer as in effect
looking at and protected from contact with existence by a lOcm
slab of plate glass. In contrast, quantum mechanics teaches the
very opposite. It is impossible to observe even so miniscule an
Dbject as an electron without in effect smashing that slab and
reaching in with the appropriate measuring equipment.
Moreover, the installation of apparatus to measure the position
mordinate. x . of the electron automatically prevents the
insertion in the same region at the same time of the equipment
that would be required to measure its momentum, p : and
:onversely."
[TJhe account [of the finding] must be given in plain
anguage ...."
"Meaning is the joint product of all the evidence that is
available to those who communicate." [lo]
"Physics does not deal with physics. Physics deals with w h a l
we can say about physics"
WHEELER THE NATURE OF THE PHYSICAL WORLD 353

Box 2. NO QUESTION? NO ANSWER!-

THE GAME OF TWENTY QUESTIONS IN ITS SURPRISEVERSION

"Is it a member of the animal kingdom?" 'No." 'Mineral

kingdom?" 'Yes.' Strangely, each new respondent requires a yet
longer time of reflection before he summons up his yes or no
reply. Soon I approach my twenty-question limit and must
venture all upon a single word. 'Is it 'cloud?' I ask. Long
agonized thought by the respondent; then a reluctant, 'Y ...es.'
Everyone bursts out laughing. While I was out of the room, they
explain, they had agreed no/ to agree on a word. There was no
word in the room when 1 entered. Everyone could respond "yes"
or "no" as he pleased - with only one small proviso. The
respondent, whatever his answer, had to have a word in mind
compatible with his own reply and with all the others.
Otherwise, challenged and unable to reply, he lost and I won. The
Game of Twenty Questions in its Surprise Version was as
difficult for my friends as for me. No wonder it took time for
them to answer!

The game in its two versions illuminates physics in its two

formulations, classical and quantum. First, the word already
existed in the room -- we thought -- independent of any
question that we might or might not ask. But it didn't. Likewise
the electron has a position and a momentum inside the atom --
physics once thought -- independent of any act of observation.
But it doesn't. Second, no information about the word came into
being except by question asked, as no information develops aboul
the electron except by experiment made. Third, if I had posed
different queries 1 would have ended up with a different word.
Likewise, the installation of equipment to measure the position
of the electron automatically makes it impossible to install in
the same place at the same time equipment to measure the
momentum of the electron, and conversely. Fourth, partial power
only did I have to influence the outcome by my choice of
questions. A major part of the decision lay in the hands of my
friends. Similarly, the experimenter decides what feature of the
electron he or she will measure; but 'nature' decides what the
magnitude of the measured quantity will be. The conclusion?
Does the world exist "out there'" No.

As animators of this report there stand three questions, unanswered

at its start and unanswered at its end: (1)What new insights does this
wonderful new loop-and-knot representation provide? (2)In what ways
can physics as a whole capitalize on it? (3) What gaps must be closed if
ever a full information-theoretic account of existence is to be achieved?
Our account will begin with the dynamics of space geometry. Next,
we shall recall the features which the quantum imposes on geometry at
the Manck scale of distances, L* = (h G/C?)~'~
= 1.6 x cm:fluctuations,
a foam-like structure, and a breakdown in the very concepts of before and
after. Then we turn to the loop representation, and reduction of loops to
knots. Previous analysis of this quantum geometrodynamics gave cen-
tral place to the probability amplitude, Y ((3)G),in its dependence on
3-geometry, but the new representation deals with Y(L) in its depen-
354 ANNALS NEW YORK ACADEMY OF SCIENCES

dence on loop, L. This quantity is sometimes, and perhaps always-

preliminary indications suggest-expressible as a superposition of pure
states of the form Y(K), much as Maxwell’s field-everywhere lets itself
be described as a superposition of many a Faraday not-everywhere line
of force.
We shall not enter into the detailed mathematics of this loop-theoretic
representation. Instead, we sketch its main findings. Then we outline the
challenges to be faced in translating it, by correspondence-principle
reasoning, into familiar geometric language-working to connect the
new with the known. And beyond that, connect the new with the un-
known? That’s the issue most challenging of all. What are the problems
and prospects for using the findings of the loop representation to illu-
minate the theme of it-from-bit, the “how come” of the quantum and the
mystery of existence?

THE UNDERSTANDING OF QUANTUM

GEOMETRODYNAMICS BEFORE ASHTEKAR

Geometrodynamics, the battle-tested and still standard account of

gravity that Einstein proposed in 1915, gives us its central idea today as
a single simple sentence: “Spacetime tells mass how to move; and mass
tells spacetime how to curve.”11The grip of spacetime on mass far from
being weak, (1) enforces the law of conservation of total “momen-
ergy”” in the crash of mass against mass, and (2) provides the standards
against which the very measurement of force first becomes possible.
How “quantize general relativity?” Bad question-so bad that it has
resisted many years of effort to answer it. Eventually the community had
to recognize that already in the classical theory the dynamic object is not
4-D spacetime. Spacetime does not wiggle. It is 3-D space geometry that
undergoes the agitation. The history of its wiggling registers itself in
frozen form as 4-D spacetime. What then is Einstein’s classical theory of
gravity all about? It is about the dynamics of 3-geometry, or geomet-
rodynamics-the Einsteinian analog of Maxwellian electrodynamics.
Against this new way of thinking no obstacle so strongly interposed
itself as the absence of any currently available quantitative global com-
mand of the totality of all 3-geometries.The metric coefficients,g,,, in the
familiar expression for proper distance, ds,

are local. The curvature components RHmn (x1,x2x3)calculated from them

are equally local, equally unable-taken locally-to provide more than
WHEELER THE NATURE OF THE PHYSICAL WORLD 355

a worm’s-eye view of one 3-geometry, (3)G,equally short of mastering the

manifold of all a G . The image suggests itself of the dealer in used
automobile parts on the outskirts of a great city. He has set aside 10,000
square meters for car fenders alone, fenders from all models from all
makers from all years: a great collection of 2-geometies,c2)G.Small dif-
ferences from one (2)Gto another fall in the province of local methods to
quantify. Global mathematization, however, of the totality of all con-
ceivable 2-geometries, and a fortiori all conceivable 3-geometries, de-
mands methods of quite another power.
These global methods: does the problem at hand demand them? Yes
and no. Yes for quantum, no for classical gravity. In classical geomet-
rodynamics, scenarios of lively astrophysical interest have already re-
ceived computer analysis by one or another technique of discretization
that provides a practical approximation to traditional differential geom-
etry. Why don’t closely related methods apply in the quantum domain?
Because each small forward step in the quantum-dynamic evolution of
3-geometry brings into play the totality of all conceivable configurations
of the 3-geometry-not the small changes characteristic of classical geo-
metrodynamics. How come?
The dynamics of 3-geometry, (3)G,both classical and quantum, un-
rolls in superspace, S (FIG.3). Superspace is that infinite-dimensional
manifold, each point of which represents one (3)G.Two nearby points in
superspace represent two 3-geometries that differ only little in shape.
Let the representative point move from one location in superspace to
another. Then the 3-geometry alters as if alive-a cinema of the dy-
namics of space. Misner, Thorne, and Wheeler,15have this to say:

The term 3-geometry makes sense as well in quantum geomet-

rodynamics as in classical theory. So does superspace. But spacetime
does not. Give a 3-geometry, and give its time rate of change. That is
enough, under [generic circumstances], to fix the whole time-evolution
of the geometry; enough, in other words, to determine the entire four-
dimensional spacetime geometry, provided one is considering the
problem in the context of classical physics. In the real world of quantum
physics, however, one cannot give both a dynamic variable and its time
rate of change. The principle of complementarity forbids. Given the
precise 3-geometry at one instant, one cannot also know at that instant
the time-rate of change of the 3-geometry. In other words, given the
geometrodynamic field coordinate, one cannot know the geometro-
dynamic field momentum. If one assigns the intrinsic 3-geometry, one
cannot also specify the extrinsic curvature [of that 3-geometry in any
purported 4-geometry].
The uncertainty principle thus deprives one of any way whatsoever
to predict, or even to give meaning to “the deterministic classical his-
356 ANNALS NEW YORK ACADEMY OF SCIENCES

FIGURE 3 Space, spacetime and superspace. Upper left: Five sample

configurations, A,B,C,D,E, attained by space in the course of its expansion and
recontraction. Below: Superspace and these five sample configurations, each
represented by a point in superspace. Upper right: Spacetime. Diagram from
Ref. 15, p. 1183.

tory of space evolving in time." No prediction of spacetime, therefore no

meaning for spacetime, is the verdict of the quantum principle. That
object which is central to all of classical general relativity, the four-
dimensional spacetime geometry, simply does not exist, except in a
classical approximation.
These considerations reveal that the concepts of spacetime and time
are not primary but secondary ideas in the structure of physical theory.
These concepts are valid in the classical approximation. However, they
have neither meaning nor application under circumstances where
quantum geometrodynamic effects become important. Then one has to
forego that view of nature in which every event, past, present, or future,
occupies its preordained position in a grand catalog called "spacetime,"
with the Einstein interval from each event to its neighbor eternally
established. There is no spacetime, there is no time, there is no before,
there is no after. The question of what happens "next" is without
meaning.
That spacetime is not the right way does not mean that there is no
right way to describe the dynamics of geometry consistent with the
quantum principle. Superspace is the key to one right way to describe
the dynamics.
WHEELER THE NATURE OF THE PHYSICAL WORLD 357

DYNAMICS OF GEOMETRY DESCRIBED IN THE

LANGUAGE OF SUPERSPACE

"Time," time is spelled with a "t"? Search about as we may in

superspace, nowhere can we catch any sight of it. Of 3-geometries, yes;
of time, no. Out of these 3-geometries, however, can we reconstruct
time? In classical theory, yes; in quantum theory, no.
Classical theory, plus initial conditions, confronted with that over-
powering totality of (3)G'swhich constitute superspace, picks out that
single bent-leaf of superspace which constitutes the relevant classical
history of 3-geometry evolving with time. Otherwise put,

(1)Classical geometrodynamics in principle constitutes a device, an

algorithm, a rule for calculating and constructing a leaf of history that
slices through superspace. (2)The (3)G'sthat lie on this leaf of history are
YES 3-geometries [YES with respect to the prescribed initial condi-
tions!]; the vastly more numerous (3)G'sthat do not are NO 3-geome-
tries. (3) The YES aG's are the building blocks of the (4)Gthat is [the
relevant] classical spacetime [for this problem, with its specified initial
conditions]. (4) The interweavings and interconnections of these build-
ing blocks give the [relevant spacetime; that is, the appropriate] (Ir)Gits
existence, its dimensionality and its structure. (5) In this structure every
(3)Ghas a rigidly fixed location of its own. (6) In this sense one can say
that the "many-fingered time" [carried by] each 3-geometry is specified
by the very interlocking structure itself.
How different from the textbook concept of spacetime! There the
geometry of spacetime is conceived as constructed out of elementary
objects, or points, known as "events." Here, by contrast, the primary
concept is 3-geometry, in abstracto, and out of it is derived the idea of
event. Thus, (1)the event lies at the intersection of such and such (3)G'~;
and (2) it has a timelike relation to (earlier or later than, or synchronous
with) some other [nearby event], which in turn (3) derives from the
intercrossings of other aG's. . . .
Quantum theory upsets the sharp distinction between YES 3-geo-
metries and NO 3-geometries. It assigns to each 3-geometry not a YES
or a NO, but a probability amplitude,

U1((3)G)

This probability amplitude [oscillateswith greatest amplitude] near the

classically forecast leaf of history and falls off steeply outside a zone of
finite thickness extending a little way on either side of the leaf.15

Quantum theory demands and physics supplies the correct wave

equation to describe how the dynamics of geometry UNOUS,
358 ANNALS NEW YORK ACADEMY OF SCIENCES

in abbreviated formI6; or, properly spelled out,16

where

This so-called WDW equation transcribes into quantum language the

very heart of Einstein‘s classical geometrodynamics: for every probe
hypersurface, in whatever way curved, through every event, it is re-
quired thatI5the sum of extrinsic curvature plus intrinsic curvature shall
be zero-zero here only because for the sake of simplicity we have
excluded from the stage all actors except space geometry.
The WDW equation is not today’s tool to master quantum gravity
because no one has yet discovered how to use it. The world of 3-
geometries is a strange and unfamiliar one. The dealer in automobile
fenders knows the location in his lot of each 2-geometry. We, by contrast,
still lack the coordinates to specify location in the world of 3-geometries.
Until we master the manifold of the independent variable, (3)G,we have
scant hope either to find a family of solutions, Y ( ( 3 ) G )or
, to read in all
fullness their message about fluctuations.
Fluctuations around a classical configuration are familiar in every
domain where the quantum makes itself felt. In the case of the harmonic
oscillator, from the ground-state probability amplitude for this, that, or
the other position, x,

we recognize that this coordinate undergoes fluctuations Ax of the order

of magnitude ( h / r n ~ ) . lIn
/ ~the case of electromagnetism, we analyze the
field into a collection of independent harmonic oscillators, with ground
state wave function given by a product of factors of the form appearing
in Eq. (6). Then we transform this product back into terms of the field
coordinate, that is, in terms of the divergence-free magnetic field B(x)
itself, to find the probability amplitude for this, that or the other dis-
tribution of field, expres~ed’~ as the functional

YB(x,y,x)) = N exp [- I] (7)

WHEELER THE NATURE OF THE PHYSICAL WORLD 359

Here N is a normalization factor and 1 is the double integral over all

space, with respect to the volume element d3x1b x , of the scalar product
of the magnetic fields at the two points divided by the inverse square of
the distance between them; more precisely,

It follows from this expression that the magnetic field in a region of

extension L undergoes fluctuations of the order of magnitude

AB - (k)ll2/ L2 (9)

The smaller the region of space under consideration, the larger are the
field magnitudes which occur with appreciable probability.
Similar considerations apply to space geometry. "Quantum fluctua-
tions in the geometry are superposed on and coexist with the large-scale,
slowly varying curvature predicted by classical deterministic general
relativity. Thus, in a region of dimension L, where in a local Lorentz
frame the normal values of the metric coefficients will be -1, 1, 1, 1 there
will occur fluctuations in these coefficients of the order Ag-L*/L
a n d . . . fluctuations in the curvature of space of the order hR-L*/L3,"
where L* is, as earlier, the Planck length. "These fluctuations have to be
viewed, not as tied to particles and endowed with the scale of distances
associated with particle physics (-lO-l3cm), but as pervading all space
("foam-like structure of geometry' [ref. 16, p. 2621) and characterized by
the Planck distance (-10-33~m)."16 They deprive the very concepts of
before and after-and therefore even the notion of time itself-of all
meaning and application.
In all the long history of physics, quantum theory comes as the first
messenger to tell us that time has no basic status in the description of
nature. In its place we have received a new tool, 3-geometry, to treat
correctly what "time" did incorrectly.

THE DYNAMICS OF GEOMETRY IN THE

LOOP REPRESENTATION

Ashtekar, Jacobson, Rovelli, Smolin and their colleagues have trans-

lated the dynamics of geometry from the language of c3)G'sto the lan-
guage of loops. Without entering into the mathematics of this trans-
formation, the subject by now of more than 190 papers? we can capture
some of the flavor of it by recalling alternative ways to look at a more
familiar field, electromagnetism. Maxwell's description deals with the
360 ANNALS NEW YORK ACADEMY OF SCIENCES

electric and the magnetic fields as functions of four coordinates in Lo-

rentz spacetime, x,y,z,t. The same solution of Maxwell’s equations lets
itself be presented as the Fourier superposition of plane waves, each
endowed with its own amplitude, polarization and wave number,
k,k,k,and circular frequency o = (k: t kt + &)1/2. Fock space representa-
tion goes to yet another level of abstractification, dealing not with the
amplitude of each of these modes of oscillation, but with the number of
quanta in the mode. Still another description, however, preceded those
of Maxwell, of harmonic analysis and of Fock that of Faraday. In it the
center of attention is the electric or the magnetic line of force itself. The
Faraday line supplies a happy analog for the Ashtekar loop. Both lines
and loops put at the center of attention, not the local field (obtained by
differentiation of the appropriate potential) but the integral of the rele-
vant potential around a loop. In electromagnetism this idea has become
familiar:

Vector
Potential Flux
d
Moreover, the magnetic flux expresses itself in direct physical terms
as well by one or other familiar measuring techniques as by it-from-bit
definition a la Aharonov and Bohm (FIG. 1).
Ashtekar invented the analogous loop-integral method to deal with
geometry:

Curvature R$
;
”
r ”
Connection Loop Variable T
‘G
Here the connection, differentiated, gives curvature, whereas integrated
around a loop it gives a two-index loop variable T. This connection,
however, as signified by the quotes, is not the one familiar in texts of
relativity and it is not normally a real-valued quantity. To give a little
impression of its character it may be enough to note that electromagne-
tism admits a similar complex “connection” built by combining mag-
netic potential A with the imaginary unit i times the electric field E. If the
writings of Oliver Heaviside and his followers could make complex-
valued quantities familiar to every engineer dealing with electrical ma-
chinery, the work nowadays being published on loop representation
WHEELER THE NATURE OF THE PHYSICAL WORLD 361

may well provide similar enlightenment to all concerned with the dy-
namics of geometry.
Two features of the loop representation stand out: first, the geomet-
rodynamic wave Equation (3) translates into an appreciably simpler-
looking equation for the new probability-amplitude function W T ) . Sec-
ond, this equation admits a countable infinity of exact solutions of the
form Y(T) = Y(K), where K is a symbol to distinguish one knot class from
The difference between loop and knot sounds almost trivial.
It is immense. The loop has some of the attributes of location associated
with it; the knot, none. Crossing number, yes; location, no.
Admitting solutions of the form Y(K), the quantum geometrody-
namic equation evidently also admits a continuous infinity of solutions,
of the form

However, it is not yet known whether the most general solution lets itself
be expressed in the knot form as in Eq. (10).
A knot? No knot exists in one dimension nor in a simply-connected
2-space. Moreover, in a space of four or more dimensions, a knot lets
itself be untied. Thus it is not unreasonable that the knot should make
its presence felt in the dynamics of the geometry of exactly three dimen-
sions. But does this involve any insight into the physics of what is going
on? The quest for such an understanding leads, at the moment, to more
questions than answers!

SEEKING CORRESPONDENCE, TO LINK

WITH WHAT WE KNOW

Newtonian mechanics and quantum mechanics: how the two relate

we learned from Bohr’s principle of correspondence and Feynman’s
concept of sum over histories. Nowadays everyone who works on Ryd-
berg atoms knows how to construct out of Schrodinger wave functions
a wave packet that follows the old Bohr prescription. However, we are
about as far as we could be at the moment from having any comparable
way to connect with knots the entities which we know, and know well:
gravity waves, and black holes built of them, and closed space model
universes populated by such black holes and waves. Where is any cor-
respondence to be seen? Evidently question after question begs for solu-
tion, among them these:
1. How to transform back and forth between Y(aG) and W K ) ?
362 ANNALS NEW YORK ACADEMY OF SCIENCES

2. How to build a wave packet that traces out a classical leaf of

history in S (FIG.3)?
3. Does a knot imply a finite universe?
4. Does a traditional ((4)Gthrow any light on the asymptotics of
knots?
5. In the new representation of quantum geometrodynamics, what
status does a wormhole acquire?
6. Does the new representation still allow us some understanding of
“spin f without spin f ” in terms of the 2”distinct triad fields that
can be laid down upon a ((3G that happens to be endowed with n
wormholes?
7. What becomes of Teitelboim’s“square root of general relativity” in
the new representation?
8. Can one deduce the pure gravity-wave radiation of a black hole
out of pure knot physics?

When knot geometrodynamics makes headway with these issues, it

will bid fair to outdo the quantum mechanics of 1924-1925 in the new
understanding it brings, the new power it confers, and the new depths
it plumbs.

FROM KNOTS TOWARDS ALL LAW FROM NO LAW?

When at length we shall succeed in walking back and forth easily on

the yet to be opened road between physics and knot theory, we shall be,
not at the end of the road, but at the beginning of a new and greater
exploration. The questions “How come existence?”, How come the
quantum?”, and “How come ‘oneworld’ out of the registrations of many
observer-participants?” will call out for answer with a new urgency,
under a new light, and from a new framework.
The thesis “it from bit” proposes itself as that framework. No other
hypothesis is evident which will respond to complementarity--“No
question? No answer!”-and to four sister demands:
(1) No tower of turtles; that is, structure A is not to be explained by
an underlying structure B, which would be explained by a still deeper
structure C, on and on, to never-ending depths. Instead, existence must
possess something of the character of a self-excited circuit’ The next
demand is corollary to this one.
(2) No law. Or no law except the law that there is no law!
(3) No continuum. ”Just as the introduction of the irrational num-
bers.. . is a convenient myth [which] simplifies the laws of arithme-
tic . . . so physical objects,’’ Willard Van Orman Quine points out,” ”are
WHEELER THE NATURE OF THE PHYSICAL WORLD 363

postulated entities which round out and simplify our account of the flux
of existence. . . The conceptual scheme of physical objects is a conven-
ient myth, simpler than the literal truth and yet containing that literal
truth as a scattered part.” A corollary of (3) stands as a final injunction:
(4) No space, no time. “We will not feed time into any deep-reaching
account of existence. We must derive time-and time only in the con-
tinuum idealization-out of it. Likewise with space.”’
No path into this new land offers itself today with greater promise
than the marvelous loop-and-knot representation of the quantum mech-
anics of geometry.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I thank my many colleagues, including Abhay Ashtekar, Bryce De-

Witt, Robert Dicke, Daniel Holz, Ted Jacobson, Arkady Kheyfets, John
Klauder, Warner Miller, Charles Misner, Carlo Rovelli, Lee Smollin and
Grisha Vilkovisky, for advice, discussion, manuscripts, and help in the
preparation of this article.

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