Related papers: Is spacetime as physical as is space?
Within the theory of general relativity gravitational phenomena are usually attributed to the curvature of four-dimensional spacetime. In this context we are often confronted with the question of how the concept of ordinary physical…
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…
Different aspects of relativity, mainly in a canonical formulation, relevant for the question "Is spacetime nothing more than a mathematical space (which describes the evolution in time of the ordinary three-dimensional world) or is it a…
The idea that possible configurations of a physical system can be represented as points in a multidimensional configuration space ${\cal C}$ is explored. The notion of spacetime, without ${\cal C}$, does not exist in this theory. Spacetime…
A particular science is not only defined by its object of study, but also by the point of view and method under which it considers that same object. Taking space and time as an illustrative example, our main aim here is to bring out an…
Quantum gravity has become a fertile interface between gravitational physics and quantum many-body physics, with its double goal of identifying the microscopic constituents of the universe and their fundamental dynamics, and of…
Under normal circumstances most members of the general relativity community focus almost exclusively on the local properties of spacetime, such as the locally Euclidean structure of the manifold and the Lorentzian signature of the metric…
The conceptual definition and understanding of the nature of time, both qualitatively and quantitatively is of the utmost difficulty and importance, and plays a fundamental role in physics. Physical systems seem to evolve in paths of…
The classifying space of inertial reference frames in special relativity is naturally hyperbolic. There is a remarkable interplay between central elements of hyperbolic geometry and those of special relativity -- which, to a certain extent,…
Recent links between Finsler Geometry and the geometry of spacetimes are briefly revisited, and prospective ideas and results are explained. Special attention is paid to geometric problems with a direct motivation in Relativity and other…
We provide here a philosophical basis for [arXiv:2012.03994, arXiv:2107.06693] based on the notion of spacetime relationalism. We argue that the view which is more cleanly compatible with GR is that in which the spacetime manifold is a…
There is a venerable position in the philosophy of space and time that holds that the geometry of spacetime is conventional, provided one is willing to postulate a "universal force field". Here we ask a more focused question, inspired by…
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…
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…
In spacetime physics, we frequently need to consider a set of all spaces (`universes') as a whole. In particular, the concept of `closeness' between spaces is essential. However, there has been no established mathematical theory so far…
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 fact that in Minkowski space, space and time are both quantized does not have to be introduced as a new postulate in physics, but can actually be derived by combining certain features of General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics. This is…
General relativity is applied to the strong interaction; the nexus between the two being arrived at by constructing a line element having the Yukawa form, which is used to describe geometrically the classical dynamics of a particle moving…
This talk discusses various aspects of the structure of space-time presenting mechanisms leading to the explanation of the "rigidity" of the manifold and to the emergence of time, i.e. of the Lorentzian signature. The proposed ingredient is…
Realism about general relativity (GR) seems to imply realism about spacetime curvature. The existence of the teleparallel equivalent of general relativity (TEGR) calls this into question, for (a) TEGR is set in a torsionful but flat…