Related papers: Presentism meets black holes
Black holes are more than just odd-looking curiosities in gravity theory. They uniquely intertwine the basic principles of General Relativity with those of Quantum Theory. Just by demanding that they nevertheless obey acceptable laws of…
Classical black holes are solutions of the field equations of General Relativity. Many astronomical observations suggest that black holes really exist in nature. However, an unambiguous proof for their existence is still lacking. Neither…
A precise definition of a black hole has long been absent in causal set theory. I first show that the local finiteness of the theory cannot be interpreted as a complete discretization condition, and the theory still admits continua, which I…
Realism -- the idea that the concepts in physical theories refer to 'things' existing in the real world -- is introduced as a tool to analyze the status of the wave-function. Although the physical entities are recognized by the existence of…
It is argued that realism and true randomness are fully compatible. Realistic true random events are acts of pure creation that obey strict laws, but do not necessarily satisfy Kolmogorov's axioms of probabilities. Realistic true randomness…
Baroque questions of set-theoretic foundations are widely assumed to be irrelevant to physics. In this article, I demonstrate that this assumption is incorrect. I show that the fundamental physical question of whether a theory is…
It is logically possible that regularly evaporating black holes exist in nature. In fact, the prevalent theoretical view is that these are indeed the real objects behind the curtain in astrophysical scenarios. There are several proposals…
The classic black hole mechanics and thermodynamics are formulated for stationary black holes with event horizons. Alternative theories of gravity of interest for cosmology contain a built-in time-dependent cosmological "constant" and black…
A long-standing tradition, largely present in both the physical and the philosophical literature, regards the advent of (special) relativity -- with its block-universe picture -- as the failure of any indeterministic program in physics. On…
At the 20-th Texas Symposium on Relativistic Astrophysics there was a plenary talk devoted to the recent developments in classical Relativity. In that talk the problems of gravitational collapse, collisions of black holes, and of black…
Metaphysics is the science of being and asks the question ``What really exists?'' The answer to this question has been sought for by mankind since the beginning of recorded time. In the past 2500 years there have been many answers to this…
The central idea advocated in this paper is that {forming the black hole horizon is attended with transition from the classical regime of evolution to the quantum one}. We justify the following criterion for discriminating between the…
This paper forms part of a wider campaign: to deny pointillisme. That is the doctrine that a physical theory's fundamental quantities are defined at points of space or of spacetime, and represent intrinsic properties of such points or…
These are the lecture notes for an introductory course on black holes and some aspects of their interaction with the classical and quantum world. The focus is on phenomena of "fundamental physics" in the immediate surroundings of the black…
Recently wide publicity has been given to a claim by T. Vachaspati that "black holes do not exist", that the objects known as black holes in astrophysics should rather be called "black stars" and they not only do not have event horizons but…
This paper forms part of a wider campaign: to deny pointillisme. That is the doctrine that a physical theory's fundamental quantities are defined at points of space or of spacetime, and represent intrinsic properties of such points or…
Black holes play a pivotal role in the foundations of physics, but there is an alarming discrepancy between what is considered to be a black hole in observational astronomy and theoretical studies. Despite claims to the contrary, we argue…
A simple model of a universe is presented composed of black holes and black branes. It uses the most simplest approximations and models of General Relativity and Quantum Dynamics to offer an idea of an unification and gives a possible…
The notions of time and causality are revisited, as well as the A- and B-theory of time, in order to determine which theory of time is most compatible with relativistic spacetimes. By considering orientable spacetimes and defining a…
The established concept of black hole emerged from several results founded on Einstein's General Theory of Relativity. In this article, the relationship between these results is analyzed, and it is pointed out how, in spite of being…