Related papers: Constructor theory of time
Time is a parameter playing a central role in our most fundamental modelling of natural laws. Relativity theory shows that the comparison of times measured by different clocks depends on their relative motions and on the strength of the…
Elementary particles, i.e. the basic constituents of nature, are characterized by quantum recurrences in time. The flow of time of every physical system can be therefore decomposed in elementary cycles of time. This allows us to enforce the…
We propose a new point of view regarding the problem of time in quantum mechanics, based on the idea of replacing the usual time operator $\mathbf{T}$ with a suitable real-valued function $T$ on the space of physical states. The proper…
I dissent from the standard assertion of a "Two Times Problem," in which physical time is taken as being at odds with the human sense of a "flow of time." I provide a brief overview of the case to be made for the contrary view: namely, that…
This paper investigates the relationship between subsystems and time in a closed nonrelativistic system of interacting bosons and fermions. It is possible to write any state vector in such a system as an unentangled tensor product of…
A new concept of internal time (viewed as a scalar temporal field) is introduced which allows one to solve the energy problem in General Relativity. The law of energy conservation means that the total energy density of the full system of…
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…
It is usually assumed that the "$t$" parameter in the equations of dynamics can be identified with the indication of the pointer of a clock. Things are not so easy, however. In fact, since the equations of motion can be written in terms of…
The operational formulations of quantum theory are drastically time oriented. However, to the best of our knowledge, microscopic physics is time-symmetric. We address this tension by showing that the asymmetry of the operational…
We give an explicit formula for the time projection in an arbitrary von Neumann algebra from which all its basic properties can be easily derived. The analysis of the situation when this time projection is a conditional expectation is also…
Despite its apparent complexity, our world seems to be governed by simple laws of physics. This volume provides a philosophical introduction to such laws. I explain how they are connected to some of the central issues in philosophy, such as…
The a priori time in conventional quantum mechanics is shown to contradict the uncertainty principle. A possible solution is given.
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…
Irrespective of local conditions imposed on the metric, any extendible spacetime U has a maximal extension containing no closed causal curves outside the chronological past of U. We prove this fact and interpret it as impossibility (in…
We argue that space and space-time emerge as a consequence of dynamical collapse of the wave function of macroscopic objects. Locality and separability are properties of our approximate, emergent universe. At the fundamental level,…
This paper puts forward a broad critical analysis of the concept of physical time. Clock effect is conceived as a consequence of the variation of the gravitational or pseudo gravitational potential, and it is remarked that only some real…
The laws of nature have come a long way since the time of Newton: quantum mechanics and relativity have given us good reasons to take seriously the possibility of laws which may be non-local, atemporal, `all-at-once,' retrocausal, or in…
Einstein distinguished between ``principle'' and ``constructive'' theories in physics, and although he thought the latter were more explanatory than the former, he regarded his 1905 formulation of special relativity theory as a principle…
We consider defining time as a function of a cyclical field, an abstraction of a clock. The definition of time corresponds to a novel interpretation of the relationship between space-time coordinates of observers at different locations in…
Contextuality was originally defined only for consistently connected systems of random variables (those without disturbance/signaling). Contextuality-by-Default theory (CbD) offers an extension of the notion of contextuality to…