Related papers: The relativity of simultaneity and presentism
The meaning of instantaneous action at a distance is elucidated. It is shown that the absence of a medium to transmit action (usually referred to as AAD in the literature) and instantaneous action are not identical. Since the term…
Special relativity is no longer a new revolutionary theory but a firmly established cornerstone of modern physics. The teaching of special relativity, however, still follows its presentation as it unfolded historically, trying to convince…
Previous research indicates that after standard instruction students at all academic levels often construct a conceptual framework in which the ideas of absolute simultaneity and the relativity of simultaneity co-exist. This article…
This paper constitutes a background to the paper 'Quantum mechanics as "space-time statistical mechanics"?', arXiv:quant-ph/0501133, presented previously by the author. But it is also a free-standing and self-contained paper. The purpose of…
Scientific realism in classical (i.e. pre-quantum) physics has remained compatible with the naive realism of everyday thinking on the whole; whereas it has proven impossible to find any consistent way to visualize the world underlying…
I dissent from the standard assertion of a "Two Times Problem," in which physical time is taken as being at odds with the human sense of a "flow of time." I provide a brief overview of the case to be made for the contrary view: namely, that…
We present some basic facts concerning simultaneity in both special and general relativity. We discuss Weyl's proof of the consistence of Einstein's synchronization convention and consider the general relativistic problem of assigning a…
As shown by the development of Special Relativity the simultaneity concept should be related to that of reference frame. Poincare' proposed to define the simultaneity of two events by means of light signals following what is nowadays known…
Theories in physics usually do not address ``the present''or ``the now''. However, they usually have a precise notion of an ``instant'' (or state). I review how this notion appears in relational point mechanics and how it suffices to…
A thought experiment is considered on observation of instantaneous collapse of an extended wave packet. According to relativity of simultaneity, such a collapse being instantaneous in some reference frame must be a lasting process in other…
Is reality three-dimensional and becoming real (Presentism), or is reality four-dimensional and becoming illusory (Eternalism)? Both options raise difficulties. I argue that we do not need to be trapped by this dilemma. There is a third…
Einstein's argument on the relativity of simultaneity itself is the first result of the special theory of relativity. The nature of this result is explored, and implications of this result for the structure and functioning of the physical…
Using ideas from continuum mechanics we construct a theory of gravity. We show that this theory is equivalent to Einstein's theory of general relativity; it is also a much faster way of reaching general relativity than the conventional…
A challenge in teaching about special relativity is that a number of the theory's effects are at odds with the intuition of classical physics, as well as student's everyday experience. The relativity of simultaneity, time dilation and…
This paper is a shortened version of the full paper that was published in the journal Frontiers of Psychology in May 2022. In recent decades, the scientific study of consciousness has significantly increased our understanding of this…
We propose an interpretation of physics named potentiality realism. This view, which can be applied to classical as well as to quantum physics, regards potentialities (i.e. intrinsic, objective propensities for individual events to obtain)…
In contemporary physics space and time are intertwined entities so that kinematical and dynamical quantities are expressed in the four-dimensional space-time. This formulation seems to contradict our every-day experience and perception…
This article reports on an investigation of student understanding of the concept of time in special relativity. A series of research tasks are discussed that illustrate, step-by-step, how student reasoning of fundamental concepts of…
The conventionalistic aspects of physical world perception are reviewed with an emphasis on the constancy of the speed of light in relativity theory and the irreversibility of measurements in quantum mechanics. An appendix contains a…
The main aim of this paper is to make a remark about the relation between (i) dualities between theories, as `duality' is understood in physics and (ii) equivalence of theories, as `equivalence' is understood in logic and philosophy. The…