Related papers: Parmenides reloaded
We provide five rearticulations of the thesis that the structure of spacetime is conventional, rather than empirically determined, based upon variation of the structures that are empirically underdetermined and modal contexts in which this…
We present a novel derivation of both the Minkowski metric and Lorentz transformations from the consistent quantification of a causally ordered set of events with respect to an embedded observer. Unlike past derivations, which have relied…
A panoramic view, preceded by a short background of Newtonian mechanics and Maxwellian electrodynamics, is offered on the extent of how Einstein's space-time geometry, believed to be central to an understanding of the structure of the…
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…
A physical theory of the world is presented under the unifying principle that all of nature is laid out before us and experienced through the passage of time. The one-dimensional progression in time is opened out into a multi-dimensional…
It is a remarkable fact that all processes occurring in the observable Universe are irreversible, whereas the equations through which the fundamental laws of physics are formulated are invariant under time reversal. The emergence of…
Astrophysical observations provide a picture of the universe as a 4-dim homogeneous and isotropic flat space-time dominated by an unknown form of dark energy. To achieve such a cosmology one has to consider in the early universe an…
The aim of this contribution is to provide a short introduction to recently investigated models in which our accessible universe is a four-dimensional submanifold, or brane, embedded in a higher dimensional spacetime and ordinary matter is…
Collapse models possibly suggest the need for a better understanding of the structure of space-time. We argue that physical space, and space-time, are emergent features of the Universe, which arise as a result of dynamical collapse of the…
We consider a global quantum system (the "Universe") satisfying a double constraint, both on total energy and total momentum. Generalizing the Page and Wootters quantum clock formalism, we provide a model of 3+1 dimensional,…
Time is, figuratively and literally, becoming the new dimension for crystalline matter. As such, rapid recent progress on time-varying media gave rise to the notion of temporal and spatiotemporal crystals. Fundamentally rethinking the role…
Flat space-time has not heretofore been thought a suitable locus in which to construct model universes because of the presumed necessity of incorporating gravitation in such models and because of the historical lack of a theory of…
On a scientific meta-level, it is discussed how an overall understanding of the physical universe can be built on the basis of well-proven theories, observations, and recent experiments. In the light of almost a century of struggle to make…
We propose a model universe, in which the dimension of the space is a continuous variable, which can take any real positive number. The dynamics leads to a model in which the universe has no singularity. The difference between our model and…
Contrary to our immediate and vivid sensation of past, present, and future as continually shifting non-relational modalities, time remains as tenseless and relational as space in all of the established theories of fundamental physics. Here…
A new dynamical paradigm merging quantum dynamics with cosmology is discussed. Time evolution involves a genuine passage of time, which distinguishes the formalism from those where dynamics in space is equivalent to statics in space-time.…
In this paper, I aim to clarify the unconscious ideologies and attitudes held by physicists through Prigogine's work. Prigogine was an outstanding chemist and physicist who made significant contributions to the development of…
This paper discusses how the transactional interpretation of quantum mechanics can provide for a natural account of the emergence of spacetime events from a quantum substratum. In this account, spacetime is not a substantive manifold that…
We discuss a 4D noncommutative space-time as suggested by the version of quantum (deformed) relativity which provides a classical geometry picture as an `AdS_5'. The 4D noncommutative space-time is more like a part of a phase space…
I examine the debate between substantivalists and relationalists about the ontological character of spacetime and conclude it is not well posed. I argue that the so-called Hole Argument does not bear on the debate, because it provides no…