Related papers: Right about time?
The notions of time in the theories of Newton and Einstein are reviewed so that certain of their assumptions are clarified. These assumptions will be seen as the causes of the incompatibility between the two different ways of understanding…
Time scales are a model of time, where the continuous and the discrete time cases are considered and merged into the same framework. In this paper some basic definitions of the time scale calculus are presented. Simultaneously, a package in…
It is rarely emphasized in modern physics textbooks that our definitions of space and time have to reflect their complete interdependence. Our intuitive methods of always picturing one-dimensional space as a sum of unit-length rods and of…
Is there a number for every bit of spacetime, or is spacetime smooth like the real line? The ultimate fate of a quantum theory of gravity might depend on it. The troublesome infinities of quantum gravity can be cured by assuming that…
The concept of time is discussed in the context of the canonical formulation of the gravitational field. Using a hypersurface orthogonal foliation, the arbitrariness of the lapse function is eliminated and the shift vector vanishes,…
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…
The nature of the change in perspective that accompanies the proposal of a unified physical theory deriving from the single dimension of time is elaborated. On expressing a temporal interval in a multi-dimensional form, via a direct…
The world appears to be well described by gauge theories; why? I suggest that gauge is more than mathematical redundancy. Gauge-dependent quantities can not be predicted, but there is a sense in which they can be measured. They describe…
Several physical concepts, including the concept of time, are clarified herein by taking into account existing experimental data. In addition, the missing links among these physical concepts are established. This allows us to take another…
Relational mechanics is a reformulation of mechanics (classical or quantum) for which space is relational. This means that the configuration of an $N$-particle system is a shape, which is what remains when the effects of rotations,…
When we discuss problems on gravity, we can not avoid some fundamental physical problems, such as space-time, inertia, and inertial reference frame. The goal of this paper is to discuss the logic system of gravity theory and the problems of…
We critically discuss the measure of very short time intervals. By means of a "gedankenexperiment", we describe an ideal clock based on the occurrence of completely random events. We show that the minimum time interval Delta t that this…
The quantization of time-reparametrization invariant systems such as general relativity is plagued by an ambiguity relating to the role of time in the theory. If one parametrizes observables by the (unobservable) time, and then relies on…
Determining and measuring cause-effect relationships is fundamental to most scientific studies of natural phenomena. The notion of causation is distinctly different from correlation which only looks at association of trends or patterns in…
Despite the extraordinary successes the two great bastions of $20^{th}$ century science (Quantum Theory and General Relativity) are troubled with serious conceptual and mathematical difficulties. As a result, further growth of fundamental…
A fascinating and deep question about nature is what one would see if one could probe space and time at smaller and smaller distances. Already the 19th-century founders of modern geometry contemplated the possibility that a piece of empty…
Spacetime and internal symmetries can be used to severely restrict the form of the equations for the fundamental laws of physics. The success of this approach in the context of general relativity and particle physics motivates the…
The conflict between quantum theory and the theory of relativity is exemplified in their treatment of time. We examine the ways in which their conceptions differ, and describe a semiclassical clock model combining elements of both theories.…
Elementary particles, i.e. the basic constituents of nature, are characterized by quantum recurrences in time. The flow of time of every physical system can be therefore decomposed in elementary cycles of time. This allows us to enforce the…
Some examples from the mathematics of shape are presented that question some of the almost hidden assumptions behind results on limiting behaviour of finitary approximations to space-time. These are presented so as to focus attention on the…