Davies & Gribbin (1992: 157-8):
At the Planck scale, spacetime itself can come into being spontaneously and uncaused, through quantum fluctuations. Each such region of spacetime is only about 10⁻³³ cm across, and it generally survives for a mere 10⁻⁴³ sec. More accurately, the concept of time during its fleeting existence is smeared out: there is really no such thing as a shorter time interval than this. Like those virtual particles, the quantum bubbles of virtual spacetime disappear again almost as soon as they are born.
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To be clear, because this quantum theory of gravity construes space-time as if it were a thing, these dimensions of measurement (space-time) are themselves construed as things to be measured in terms of space-time. That is, on this model, a "bubble" of virtual space-time is instantiated within the spatial interval of 1 Planck length, and the unfolding of its instantiation within the temporal interval of 1 Planck time.
On this basis, it is not that the concept of time is "smeared out", but that the unfolding of the instantiation process cannot be temporally segmented.
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