Related papers: Relational Paradigm in Asks and Answers
Mach's principle is incompatible with general relativity (GR), it has not condensed into an established theory and suffers from inconsistencies. Yet, the problem is that Mach's principle is a consequence of Berkeley's notions, which are as…
This paper elaborates on relationalism about space and time as motivated by a minimalist ontology of the physical world: there are only matter points that are individuated by the distance relations among them, with these relations changing.…
Mach's principle fits into the wider "relational principle", advocating that not only inertia, but also space and time emerge from the interaction of matter. Concepts of a Machian/relational theory are proposed, where inertia and energy are…
Two definitions of Mach's principle are proposed. Both are related to gauge theory, are universal in scope and amount to formulations of causality that take into account the relational nature of position, time, and size. One of them leads…
In a purely relational theory there exists a tension between the relational character of the theory and the existence of quantities like distance and duration. We review this issue in the context of the Leibniz-Clarke correspondence. We…
We present an axiomatic framework for what we call Mach's mechanics, inspired on the ideas by A. K. T. Assis and P. Graneau about relational mechanics. We show that contrarily to what is suggested by these authors, Mach's principle does not…
This article contributes to the debate of the meaning of relationalism and background independence, which has remained of interest in theoretical physics from Newton versus Leibniz through to foundational issues for today's leading…
Relativistic systems of particles interacting pairwise at a distance (interactions not mediated by fields) in flat spacetime are studied. It is assumed that the interactions propagate at the speed of light in vacuum and that all masses are…
Mach's principle is surely one of those tantalizingly beautiful concepts in physics which remain elusive. Though General Relativity (GR) was conceived in the spirit of realizing it, the theory failed to fulfill this expectation. Here a…
Action-at-a-distance is a generic property of physical theories. As such, it is not a fruitful idea in theory building. Its absence confers a rigidity on a theory which we exemplify through analysis of long-range correlations of the…
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,…
Motivation and perspective for an exciting new research direction interconnecting logic, spacetime theory, relativity--including such revolutionary areas as black hole physics, relativistic computers, new cosmology--are presented in this…
Understanding realistic complex systems requires confronting significant conceptual, theoretical and experimental limitations rooted in the persistence of views that originated in the mechanics of simple moving bodies. We define the…
The paper discusses some aspects of real physical space and time: structure of electrodynamics; structure of gravitational-inert theory in the real world; formation of the real matter; Mach's principle and the radiational cosmic mass;…
Some authors in the quantum gravity community endorse, explicitly or implicitly, a radical relationalist view of time which states that the ordinal structure of time is not needed even in our classical theories, especially in general…
General relativity and quantum mechanics have both revealed the relativity of certain notions that were previously thought to be absolute. I clarify the precise sense in which these theories are relational, and I argue that the various…
The paper discusses from a metaphysical standpoint the nature of the dependence relation underpinning the talk of mutual action between material and spatiotemporal structures in general relativity. It is shown that the standard analyses of…
Have our fundamental theories got time right? Does size really matter? Or is physics all in the eyes of the beholder? In this essay, we question the origin of time and scale by reevaluating the nature of measurement. We then argue for a…
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…
The tremendous popular success of Chaos Theory shares some common points with the not less fortunate Relativity: they both rely on a misunderstanding. Indeed, ironically , the scientific meaning of these terms for mathematicians and…