Possible Duplicate:
Why are higher order Lagrangians called 'non-local'?
Bjorken and Drell presents the equation:
$$i\hbar\frac{d\psi}{dt}=H\psi=\sqrt{p^2 c^2+m^2 c^4}\psi=\sqrt{-\hbar^2 c^2 \nabla^2+m^2 c^4}\psi$$
The squareroot can be expanded to obtain an equation with all powers of the derivative operator. What do they mean when they say this leads to a non-local theory?
And is this equation incorrect or just impractical?
To see why the theory is nonlocal, consider the effect of the derivative operator... I like to put things on a lattice, so I will: $\psi_i=\psi(x_i)$, then the derivatives (in 1D, for simplicity) become $$\nabla^2 \psi_i \propto (\psi_{i-1}-2\psi_i + \psi_{i+1})$$ Now, you can see what happens as you continue to apply derivatives (as you must, in the expansion of the square root) -- For high order derivatives, the time-derivative of $\psi$ at a lattice site will depend on the instantaneous spatial values of the whole field!
