Related papers: Time and irreversibility in an accelerating univer…
The inception of a universal gravity-related irreversibility took place originally in quantum cosmology. The ultimate reason of universal irreversibility is thought to come from black holes close to the Planck scale. Completely different…
The time reversal and irreversibility in conventional quantum mechanics are compared with those of the rigged Hilbert space quantum mechanics. We discuss the time evolution of Gamow and Gamow-Jordan vectors and show that the rigged Hilbert…
It is argued that Hawking's `greatest mistake' may not have been a mistake at all. According to the canonical quantum theory of gravity for Friedmann type universes, any time arrows of general nature can only be correlated with that of the…
In 1979 Penrose hypothesized that the arrows of time are explained by the hypothesis that the fundamental laws are time irreversible. That is, our reversible laws, such as the standard model and general relativity are effective, and emerge…
We exploit the parallel between dynamical black holes and cosmological spacetimes to describe the evolution of Friedmann-Lema\^itre-Robertson-Walker universes from the point of view of an observer in terms of the dynamics of the apparent…
Three of the big puzzles of theoretical physics are the following: (i) There is apparently no time evolution in the dynamics of quantum general relativity, because the allowed quantum states must obey the Hamiltonian constraint. (ii) During…
It is shown that topological changes in space-time are necessary to make General Relativity compatible with the Newtonian limit and to solve the hierarchy of the fundamental interactions. We detail how topology and topological changes…
Contemporary research programs in fundamental physics appear to suggest that there could be two (physical) times---or none at all. This essay articulates these possibilities in the context of quantum gravity, and in particular of…
From an observational perspective cosmology is today in excellent shape - advances in instrumentation and data processing have enabled us to study the universe in detail back to when the first galaxies formed, map the fluctuations in the…
A cosmological time variable is emerged from the hamiltonian formulation of unimodular theory of gravity to measure the evolution of dynamical observables in the theory. A set of constants of motion has been identified for the theory on the…
Quantum cosmology offers a unique stage to address questions of time related to its underlying (and perhaps truly quantum dynamical) meaning as well as its origin. Some of these issues can be analyzed with a general scheme of quantum…
Time's apparent passage has long been debated by philosophers, with no decisive argument for or against its objective existence. In this paper we show that introducing the issue of determinism gives the debate a new, empirical twist. We…
Space and time are central concepts for understanding our World. They are important ingredients at the core of every scientific theory and subject of intense debate in philosophy. Albert Einstein's Special and General theories of Relativity…
By studying the set of correlations that are theoretically possible between physical systems without allowing for signalling of information backwards in time, we here identify correlations that can only be achieved if the time ordering…
A model unifying general relativity with quantum mechanics is further developed. It is based on a noncommutative geometry which supposedly modelled the universe in its pre-Planckian epoch. The geometry is totally nonlocal with no time and…
The conceptual definition and understanding of the nature of time, both qualitatively and quantitatively is of the utmost difficulty and importance, and plays a fundamental role in physics. Physical systems seem to evolve in paths of…
It is demonstrated how a convenient choice of the mathematical structure of the quantum cosmology superspace, precisely the definition of a convenient regular state superspace and the restriction of the dynamics to this space, yields…
Barbour, Hawking, Misner and others have argued that time cannot play an essential role in the formulation of a quantum theory of cosmology. Here we present three challenges to their arguments, taken from works and remarks by Kauffman,…
In this paper we discuss a cosmological model for a universe with self-regulating features. We set up the theoretical framework for the model and determine the time evolution of the scale-factor $a(t)$. It is shown that such a universe…
Irreversibility implies a preferred flow of time, yet special relativity denies the existence of a preferred clock. This tension has long obstructed the formulation of a relativistic master equation: standard Markovian approximations either…