Related papers: Elementary cycles of time
Starting from the guiding principles of spacetime locality and operationalism, a general framework for a probabilistic description of nature is proposed. Crucially, no notion of time or metric is assumed, neither any specific physical…
Quantum physics is a linear theory, so it is somewhat puzzling that it can underlie very complex systems such as digital computers and life. This paper investigates how this is possible. Physically, such complex systems are necessarily…
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,…
Einstein's dream of describing elementary particles as solutions of a classical field theory is severely limited by our current understanding of Nature. Quantum theory is inconsistent with any local realistic theory such as evolving…
A general definition of a clock is proposed, and the role of clocks in establishing temporal pre-conditions in quantum mechanical questions is critically discussed. The different status of clocks as used by theorists external to a system…
Quantum measurement predictions are consistent with relativity for macroscopic observations, but there is no consensus on how to explain this consistency in fundamental terms. The prevailing assumption is that the relativistic structure of…
A deformation of special relativistic kinematics (possible signal of a theory of quantum gravity at low energies) leads to a modification of the notion of spacetime. At the classical level, this modification is required when one considers a…
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…
The shortening of bodies in the direction of motion, Lorentz contraction, follows from the solution of Maxwell's equations. Moving light clocks will tick slower than those at rest because the speed of light does not depend on a source of…
Motivated by the Generalized Uncertainty Principle, covariance, and a minimum measurable time, we propose a deformation of the Heisenberg algebra and show that this leads to corrections to all quantum mechanical systems. We also demonstrate…
In a way similar to classical mechanics where we have the concept of inertial time as expressed in the motions of bodies, in the (special) theory of relativity we can regard the inertial time as the only notion of time at play. The inertial…
The idea that spacetime points are to be identified by a fleet of clock--carrying particles can be traced to the earliest days of general relativity. Such a fleet of clocks can be described phenomenologically as a reference fluid. One…
The use of a relational time in quantum mechanics is a framework in which one promotes to quantum operators all variables in a system, and later chooses one of the variables to operate like a ``clock''. Conditional probabilities are…
The paper puts forward a conceptual framework in which the phenomenon of time can be presented and discussed in a proper way. We argue that change is ontologically and epistemologically a more basic phenomenon than time. Time is an abstract…
Antiparticles may be interpreted as ordinary particles travelling backwards in time and the two descriptions are considered equivalent, at least in special relativity and relativistic quantum mechanics. It is suggested that, vice versa, the…
We take causality and uniqueness of events observation as our driving forces. They are built in in the way we define distinct observers, which then require a finite time to communicate between each other. This unavoidably leads to the…
We will prove that, in general, a system formed by several particles moving along relativistic trajectories can not be described by a mechanical system. The contradiction that leads to the previous assertion is due to the fact that a…
We present a solution to the time discontinuity paradox in rotating reference frames by postulating that time is periodic. A kinematic restriction is enforced that requires the discontinuity to be an integral number of the periodicity of…
We present a derivation of the structure and dynamics of a ticking clock by showing that for finite systems a single natural principle serves to distinguish what we understand as ticking clocks from time-keeping systems in general. As a…
The existence of small amounts of advanced radiation, or a tilt in the arrow of time, makes the basic equations of physics mixed-type functional differential equations. The novel features of such equations point to a microphysical structure…