Related papers: Space and Time
Programs in quantum gravity often claim that time emerges from fundamentally timeless physics. In the semiclassical time program time arises only after approximations are taken. Here we ask what justifies taking these approximations and…
A recent paper by Hartle [Phys. Rev. D 51, 1800 (1995)] proposes a definition of "spacetime information" - the information available about a quantum system's boundary conditions in the various sets of decohering histories it may display -…
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…
String theory has transformed our understanding of geometry, topology and spacetime. Thus, for this special issue of Foundations of Physics commemorating "Forty Years of String Theory", it seems appropriate to step back and ask what we do…
The spacetime structure of the spatially uniformly expanding universe is described in terms of a kind of global space and global time instead of the space and time we usually recognize. The global space at some instant is a space in which…
This paper concerns what Background Independence itself is (as opposed to some particular physical theory that is background independent). The notions presented mostly arose from a layer-by-layer analysis of the facets of the Problem of…
We introduce the notion of causally-null-compactifiable space-times which can be canonically converted into a compact timed-metric-spaces using the cosmological time of Andersson-Howard-Galloway and the null distance of Sormani-Vega. We…
It is postulated there is not a precise static instant in time underlying a dynamical physical process at which the relative position of a body in relative motion or a specific physical magnitude would theoretically be precisely determined.…
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…
An enquiry into the physical nature of time and space and into the ontology of quantum mechanics from a metageometric perspective, resulting from the belief that geometric thought and language are powerless to farther understanding of these…
We show here that what we call visual space of consciousness, the space of what we see, is a specific space different from the purely physical one and that its properties imply that it cannot be reduced to or deduced from physical laws.…
We argue in a quantitative way that the unitarity principle of quantum field theory together with the quantum information bound on correlation functions are in tension with a space which is made out of disconnected patches at microscopic…
Special relativity is most naturally formulated as a theory of space-time geometry, but within the space-time framework probability apears to be at best an epistemic notion - a matter of what can be known, not of the status of events in…
What is a physical theory? Although this intriguing question has been addressed from many different perspectives, some physicists and philosophers of physics have implicitly or explicitly embraced a philosophically-neutral definition of a…
On the base of years of experience of working on the problem of the physical foundation of quantum mechanics the author offers principles of solving it. Under certain pressure of mathematical formalism there has raised a hypothesis of…
We consider spacetime to be a 4-dimensional differentiable manifold that can be split locally into time and space. No metric, no linear connection are assumed. Matter is described by classical fields/fluids. We distinguish electrically…
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…
Background independence is often emphasized as an important property of a quantum theory of gravity that takes seriously the geometrical nature of general relativity. In a background-independent formulation, quantum gravity should determine…
We define the time travel paradox in physical terms and prove its existence by constructing an explicit example. We argue further that in theories -- such as general relativity -- where the spacetime geometry is subject to nothing but…
Operational definition of space-time in light of quantum mechanics and general relativity inevitably indicates an intrinsic imprecision in space-time structure which has to do with space-time dimension as well. The operational dimension of…