Qualitative features of quantized gravitation

Abstract

From a re-examination of a discussion by Bohr and Einstein of a gedanken experiment designed to violate the uncertainty relations, it is suggested that a qualitatively new feature of the merging quantum theory of gravitation is that it may provide a new understanding of the ‘reduction of the wave packet’ of quantum mechanics. In brief, for finitely massive observers, half of the classical dynamical variables must be employed to specify the frame of reference, whereas only the remaining half of the dynamical variables are available for unequivocal observation. Observers whose frames of reference cannot be related by definiteC-number transformations would, in general, ‘reduce wave packets’ differently.