Related papers: Does Time exist? -- catchphrases and concepts
With a view to the results discussed in the first two parts of this paper, the concept of time is revisited oncemore and chosen as an example in order to demonstrate the meaning of fundamental in both physical and philosophical terms. It is…
As repeatedly emphasized by Einstein our knowledge of the structure of space and time is based entirely on inferences from observations of physical objects and processes. At the most fundamental level these objects and processes are…
How special (or not) is the epoch we are living in? What is the appropriate reference class for embedding the observations made at the present time? How probable -- or else -- is anything we observe in the fulness of time? Contemporary…
Time plays different roles in quantum mechanics and gravity. These roles are examined and the problems that the conflict in the roles presents for quantum gravity are briefly summarised.
Did the universe have a beginning or does it exist forever, i.e. is it eternal at least in relation to the past? This fundamental question was a main topic in ancient philosophy of nature and the Middle Ages. Philosophically it was more or…
This is a philosophical paper. It claims that there is a gap to be filled in the relationship between complexity theory (CT) and quantum theory (QT). This gap concerns two very distinct understandings of time. The paper provides the ground…
In this paper I discuss the concept of time in physics. I consider the thermal time hypothesis and I claim that thermal clocks and atomic clocks measure different physical times, whereby thermal time and relativistic time are not compatible…
The nature of time has beguiled philosophers for nearly three millennia. There are myriad types of time including cosmological time, biological time, psychological time, physical time, historical time, and even theological time. My brief…
This report offers a modern perspective on the problem of negative energy, based on a re-examination of the concept of time direction as it arises in a classical and quantum-mechanical context. From this analysis emerges an improved…
Barbour, Hawking, Misner and others have argued that time cannot play an essential role in the formulation of a quantum theory of cosmology. Here we present three challenges to their arguments, taken from works and remarks by Kauffman,…
In quantum mechanics time usually appears as classical parameter which means that it is treated as being essentially different from spatial coordinates that are represented by operators. On the other hand, relativity theory demands to treat…
We discuss how developments in physics often imply in the need that spacetime acquires an increasingly richer and complex structure. General Relativity was the first theory to show us the way to connect space and time with the physical…
Time, space, and matter are categories of our reasoning, whose properties appear to be fundamental. However, these require a scrutiny as in the extreme regime of the primordial universe these present quantum properties. What does it mean…
The Block Universe idea, representing spacetime as a fixed whole, suggests the flow of time is an illusion: the entire universe just is, with no special meaning attached to the present time. This view is however based on time-reversible…
Modern physics, via the standard model with Higgs mechanism and string theory for example, has supplied ether-like models and emergent general relativity scenarios that substantially weaken the usual defense of orthodox relativity and…
Without a doubt many problems in physics arise as a consequence of our philosophical conception of the world. In this contribution however we endeavor to alleviate this scenario by putting forward a philosophical approach under which some…
Assorted questions: Time as a parameter in Quantum Mechanics. No-Go theorems for a time operator. Localization, time and causality. Causality violation. Localization again. Lesson 1: Evading the troubles: Im E finite. Lights and shadows of…
Current theoretical physics suggests the flow of time is an illusion: the entire universe just is, with no special meaning attached to the present time. This paper points out that this view, in essence represented by usual space-time…
The relationship between the intrinsic motion of gravity, light, and time is explored in terms of the principles of entropy, causality, energy, and symmetry conservation. A conceptual mechanism for gravity and the gravitational connection…
We discuss the hints for the disappearance of continuum space and time at microscopic scale. These include arguments for a discrete nature of them or for a fundamental non-locality, in a quantum theory of gravity. We discuss how these ideas…