An FQxI cofunded study suggests hidden connections between quantum mechanics, gravity, and time.
Scientists have taken a new look at one of quantum physics’ strangest problems and found that the answer may reach all the way to time itself.
In quantum mechanics, particles do not behave like everyday objects. Instead of existing in one clearly defined state, they can occupy several possible states at once, a phenomenon known as superposition. Physicists describe this blurry quantum behavior with a mathematical object called a ‘wavefunction.’
But in the ordinary world, things do not seem to work that way. A chair is in one spot, not two. A clock shows one time, not many. Bridging that gap between the quantum world and daily experience has challenged physicists for decades.
To reconcile this difference, physicists typically argue that when a quantum system interacts with a measuring device or observer, its wavefunction ‘collapses’ into a single, definite outcome.
With support from the Foundational Questions Institute, FQxI, an international group of physicists has now investigated a set of unconventional approaches to this measurement problem known as ‘quantum collapse models,’ revealing that they could have significant consequences for how time behaves and how precisely it can be measured. Their findings, published in Physical Review Research, also propose a new strategy for experimentally distinguishing these models from standard quantum theory.
“What we did was to take seriously the idea that collapse models may be linked to gravity,” says Nicola Bortolotti, a PhD student at the Enrico Fermi Museum and Research Centre (CREF) in Rome, Italy, who led the study. “And then we asked a very concrete question: What does this imply for time itself?”
Spontaneous Collapse
During the 1980s, researchers began developing quantum models in which wavefunction collapse occurs spontaneously, independent of observation or measurement. Unlike standard ‘interpretations’ of quantum mechanics, which tend to be philosophical frameworks that cannot be distinguished experimentally, these collapse models produce specific predictions that can, in principle, be tested in the lab.
“What we did was to take seriously the idea that collapse models may be linked to gravity. And then we asked a very concrete question: What does this imply for time itself?” says Nicola Bortolotti.
To explore this idea, Bortolotti and colleagues Catalina Curceanu, a member of FQxI and research director at the Laboratori Nazionali di Frascati of the National Institute for Nuclear Physics (INFN-LNF) in Frascati, Italy, Kristian Piscicchia, at CREF and INFN-LNF, Lajos Diósi, of the Wigner Research Center for Physics and Eötvös Loránd University, in Budapest, Hungary, and Simone Manti of INFN-LNF examined two leading collapse models. One is the Diósi-Penrose model (named after FQxI members Lajos Diósi and Sir Roger Penrose), which has long proposed a connection between gravity and wavefunction collapse. The team also established, for the first time, a quantitative relationship between another model, Continuous Spontaneous Localization, and fluctuations in gravitational spacetime.
The study shows that if these collapse models accurately describe nature, then time itself would carry a minute intrinsic uncertainty. This would introduce a fundamental limit on how precisely time can be measured, although the effect is extraordinarily small. “Once you do the calculation, the answer is clear and surprisingly reassuring,” said Bortolotti.
Importantly, this predicted uncertainty has no impact on practical timekeeping. Even the most advanced atomic clocks, now or in the foreseeable future, would remain unaffected. “The uncertainty is many orders of magnitude below anything we can currently measure, so it has no practical consequences for everyday timekeeping,” says Curceanu. “Our results explicitly show that modern timekeeping technologies are entirely unaffected,” adds Piscicchia.
Linking quantum theory and gravity
For decades, physicists have been searching for a unified framework that can reconcile quantum mechanics with gravity. Each theory is remarkably successful within its own domain. Quantum mechanics governs the behavior of particles at the smallest scales, while Einstein’s general theory of relativity describes gravity and the large-scale structure of the universe. However, the two frameworks treat time in fundamentally different ways. “In standard quantum mechanics, time is treated as an external, classical parameter that is not affected by the quantum system being studied,” explains Curceanu. By contrast, in general relativity, time and space are dynamic and can bend and change in response to mass and energy.
“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.
The new results build on the idea that quantum mechanics may be part of a deeper and more comprehensive theory. By revealing a possible link between collapse models, gravity, and the behavior of time, the work points toward previously hidden connections between these foundational aspects of physics.
Curceanu also emphasized the role of FQxI in supporting unconventional research directions. “There are not many foundations in the world which are supporting research on these types of fundamental questions about the universe, space, time, and matter,” says Curceanu. “Our work shows that even radical ideas about quantum mechanics can be tested against precise physical measurements, and that, reassuringly, timekeeping remains one of the most stable pillars of modern physics.”
Reference: “Fundamental limits on clock precision from spacetime uncertainty in quantum collapse models” by Nicola Bortolotti, Catalina Curceanu, Lajos Diósi, Simone Manti and Kristian Piscicchia, 13 November 2025, Physical Review Research.
DOI: 10.1103/p6tj-lg8l
This work was partially supported through FQxI’s Consciousness in the Physical World program.
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10 Comments
As a senior lay American male investigator with a particular personal “insight” into the true nature of gravity in 2009, it took me until 2012 to devise, perform, record and upload my first gravity demonstration video. In June of 2025 I devised, performed, recorded and uploaded a fourth gravity video, also demonstrating inertia (https://odysee.com/@charlesgshaver:d/5Gravity:c). Now, nearly a year later, I’m preparing to do a fifth to attempt to disprove time dilation, hopefully by mid-summer of this year. The gist of the problem for others is what I see as a self-replicating “glitch” in the program of “quantum mechanics.” In 1801 Thomas Young misinterpreted the scattering of dots in his double-slit experiments as a “duality” of particles and waves when, in my model, it was due to radiant coherent pulsing angular lines of gravity force changing the directions of the photons. To make matters worse, in his 1915 General Relativity Einstein published that gravity was the “warping” of “spacetime.” Simply put, space just is and “time” just isn’t; an arbitrary label for an incredibly rapid succession of now moments interspaced with an incredibly rapid succession of intervals of probable equal duration.
Ber reasonable, if it isn’t published in peer review it is your personal opinion, not an ‘insight’.
Professor Larsson, as a lone lay discoverer I’ve never been eligible for any of the research grants I’ve ever investigated, and never offered any help. Consequently, I don’t feel obligated to do things the “professional” way. I’ve been gathering materials for a new (one previously aborted early) attempt to “disprove time dilation” experiment that I hope to complete by mid-summer. If successful, I’ll probably try to publish it in some peer reviewed paper before uploading a fifth demonstration video to my ad-free video channel. If failed, I may just do a video of a failed experiment I doubt most professionals could even imagine. Stay tuned.
Does this author not read what was written before an embarrassing publication? Whole paragraphs are repeated almost word for word.
Sloppy writing does not increased credence make
The original author to the press release is an anonymous press agent at the FQXI institute. Professionals make mistakes too.
Time is part of the Fractal Time Space Interval system, you affect one it affects the rest. Stable element 115 bombarded with protons can alter gravity mass and time. That’s why Lockheed Martin using this method reverse engineered from NH craft can fly without normal propulsion. It takes an enormous amount of zero point energy to do this. Disclosure will bring it out soon. We just need an amnesty program for those keeping the deadly secret.
There’s so much we don’t really know about black holes or dark matter and where they really lead to that makes you wonder if we ever know … definitely not in this lifetime 😉
Please make an effort to refrain from conspiracy theories. If nothing else, they are boring to the rest of us.
Guess you ought to go into hiding, or you too will “disappear.”
What they claim being “serious” about is getting even more intellectually tunnel-visioned with math.
Ya got gravity (and I have my thoughts on this) which is an effect we shall not quibble, and math. One is reality, one is squiggles – that people take ‘seriously.’ They can’t seem to separate their changing squiggles from what they are trying to squiggle about.