Related papers: Relationalism
This paper presents a research program aimed at establishing relational foundations for relativistic quantum physics. Although the formalism is still under development, we believe it has matured enough to be shared with the broader…
I present a discussion of some issues in the ontology of spacetime. After a characterisation of the controversies among relationists, substantivalists, eternalists, and presentists, I offer a new argument for rejecting presentism, the…
Consider the configuration space Q for some physical system, and a continuous group of transformations G whose action on the configurations is declared to be physically irrelevant. Implement G indirectly by adjoining 1 auxiliary g per…
We study the field equations of modified theories of gravity in which the lagrangian is a general function of the Ricci scalar and Ricci-squared terms in Palatini formalism. We show that the independent connection can be expressed as the…
A review is given of the implications of the absence of an intrinsic notion of instantaneous 3-space, so that a clock synchronization convention has to be introduced, for relativistic theories.
The theory of relativistic {\em location systems} is sketched. An interesting class of these systems is that of relativistic {\em positioning systems,} which consists in sets of four clocks broadcasting their proper time. Among them, the…
Relational particle models are of value in the absolute versus relative motion debate. They are also analogous to the dynamical formulation of general relativity, and as such are useful for investigating conceptual strategies proposed for…
It is suggested that the "B" in QBism rightfully stands for Bohr. The paper begins by explaining why Bohr seems obscure to most physicists. Having identified the contextuality of physical quantities as Bohr's essential contribution to…
Inspired by Bohr's dictum that "physical phenomena are observed relative to different experimental setups", this article investigates the notion of relativity in Bohr's sense, starting from a set of binary elements. The most general form of…
The description of relativistic effects requires a preliminary definition of events localised in space-time while the clocks used for time definition and the fields used in synchronisation or localisation procedures are necessarily quantum…
The relational version of the modal interpretation offers both a consistent quantum ontology and solution for quantum paradoxes within the framework of nonrelativistic quantum mechanics. In the present paper this approach is generalized for…
The Ehresmann connection on a fiber bundle that is not compatible with a (possible) Lie group structure is illustrated by the geometry of a general anholonomic observer in the Minkowski space. The 3D split of Maxwell's equations induces…
Leibniz said "Naturam cognosci per analogiam": nature is understood by making analogies. This statement describes a seminal epistemological principle. But one has to be aware of its limitations: quantum mechanics for example at some point…
Relative motion of particles is examined in the context of relational space-time. It is shown that de Broglie waves may be derived as a representation of the coordinate maps between the rest-frames of these particles. Energy and momentum…
The application of quantum theory to cosmology raises a number of conceptual questions, such as the role of the quantum-mechanical notion of "observer" or the absence of a time variable in the Wheeler-DeWitt equation. I point out that a…
In 1835 Lobachevski entertained the possibility of multiple (rival) geometries. This idea has reappeared on occasion (e.g., Poincar\'{e}) but didn't become key in space-time foundations prior to Brown's \emph{Physical Relativity} (at the…
Because of the non-locality of quantum entanglement, realist approaches to completing quantum mechanics have implications for our conception of space. Quantum gravity also is expected to predict phenomena in which the locality of classical…
This is an introduction to the by now fifteen years old research field of canonical quantum general relativity, sometimes called "loop quantum gravity". The term "modern" in the title refers to the fact that the quantum theory is based on…
Quantum reference frames have attracted renewed interest recently, as their exploration is relevant and instructive in many areas of quantum theory. Among the different types, position and time reference frames have captivated special…
We consider the possibility that the basic space of physics is not spacetime, but configuration space. We illustrate this on the example with a system of gravitationally interacting point particles. It turns out that such system can be…