Related papers: Time and Reality of Worldtubes
Rather than an a priori arena in which events take place, space-time is a construction of our mind making possible a particular kind of ordering of events. As quantum entanglement is a property of states independent of classical distances,…
Research in quantum gravity strongly suggests that our world in not fundamentally spatiotemporal, but that spacetime may only emerge in some sense from a non-spatiotemporal structure, as this paper illustrates in the case of causal set…
Numerous approaches to a quantum theory of gravity posit fundamental ontologies that exclude spacetime, either partially or wholly. This situation raises deep questions about how such theories could relate to the empirical realm, since…
This essay presents an accessible introduction to the basic motivations to seek a quantum theory of gravity. It focuses on one approach- loop quantum gravity - as an example of the rich philosophical issues that arise when we try to combine…
It is now widely believed that if the gravitational field is (perturbatively) quantum, it would entangle two massive objects (in spatial superpositions) which were otherwise unentangled to begin with. Recently, actual table-top experiments…
The quantum mechanical wave-particle dualism is analyzed and criticized, in the framework of Reichenbach's concepts of phenomenon and interphenomenon. It is suggested that the dual pictures be de-emphasized in the study of quantum theory,…
In a recent article O. Ulfbeck and A. Bohr (Foundations of Physics 31, 757, 2001) have stressed the genuine fortuitousness of detector clicks, which has also been pointed out, in different terms, by the present author (American Journal of…
Theories of quantum gravity generically presuppose or predict that the reality underlying relativistic spacetimes they are describing is significantly non-spatiotemporal. On pain of empirical incoherence, approaches to quantum gravity must…
This paper forms part of a wider campaign: to deny pointillisme. That is the doctrine that a physical theory's fundamental quantities are defined at points of space or of spacetime, and represent intrinsic properties of such points or…
My object in the present paper is to: (1) introduce physicists to the life and work of Whitehead; (2) outline the content of his book "The Principle of Relativity"; (3) present Whitehead's basic criticism of the General Theory of Relativity…
A time-flat condition on spacelike 2-surfaces in spacetime is considered here. This condition is analogous to constant torsion condition for curves in three dimensional space and has been studied in [2, 4, 5, 12, 13]. In particular, any…
Future gravitational-wave observations will enable unprecedented and unique science in extreme gravity and fundamental physics answering questions about the nature of dynamical spacetimes, the nature of dark matter and the nature of compact…
Spacetime manifolds that are not time orientable play a key role in a gravitational explanation of quantum theory. Such manifolds allow topology change, but also have fascinating additional properties such as net charge from source-free…
Over the last decade a growing number of quantum-gravity researchers has been looking for opportunities for the first ever experimental evidence of a Planck-length quantum property of spacetime. These studies are usually based on the…
Newton's action at a distance gravitational law and Coulomb's action at a distance electrostatic law had to be reexamined in the light of field theories which originated from Maxwell's electrodynamics. These ideas were further modified with…
In prior work, we have argued that spacetime functionalism provides tools for clarifying the conceptual difficulties specifically linked to the emergence of spacetime in certain approaches to quantum gravity. We argue in this article that…
All differences between the role of space and time in nature are explained by proposing the principles in which none of the spacetime coordinates has an {\it a priori} special role. Spacetime is treated as a non-dynamical manifold, with a…
The Universe is a physical object. Physical objects have shapes and sizes. General relativity is insufficient to describe the global shape and size of the Universe: the Hilbert-Einstein equations only treat limiting quantities towards an…
The quantum-mechanical description of the world, including human observers, makes substantial use of entanglement. In order to understand this, we need to adopt concepts of truth, probability and time which are unfamiliar in modern…
A quantum object is extended by virtue of quantum uncertainty. Subjected to gravity, it therefore experiences tidal forces and other relativistic effects. As a result, entropy and purity affect geodesic motion and acquire weight, an…