Related papers: General formalism, classification, and demystifica…
Looking at current proposals of so-called `warp drive spacetimes', they appear to employ General Relativity only at an elementary level. A number of strong restrictions are imposed such as flow-orthogonality of the spacetime foliation,…
The serious study of such science fiction staples as wormholes, time travel, and the warp drive, as a means of understanding and constraining possible realistic solutions within General Relativity is reviewed.
''Warp drive'' spacetimes are useful as ''gedanken-experiments'' and as a theoretician's probe of the foundations of general relativity. Applying linearized gravity to the weak-field warp drive, i.e., for non-relativistic warp-bubble…
Contemporary relativity theory is restricted in two points: (1) a use of the Riemannian space-time geometry and (2) a use of inadequate (nonrelativistic) concepts. Reasons of these restrictions are analysed in [1]. Eliminating these…
We first take a closer look at the original warp drive proposal by Alcubierre, examine its kinematics in the context of a covariant 3+1 setting, and explain some drawbacks of this construction. In this model, changes of the velocity profile…
Preliminary results on a canonical formulation of general relativity based on an analogy with the string model of elementary particles are presented. Rather than the metric components, the basic fields of the formalism are taken to be the…
"Warp drive" spacetimes are useful as "gedanken-experiments" that force us to confront the foundations of general relativity, and among other things, to precisely formulate the notion of "superluminal" communication. We verify the…
"Warp drive" spacetimes and wormhole geometries are useful as "gedanken-experiments" that force us to confront the foundations of general relativity, and among other issues, to precisely formulate the notion of "superluminal" travel and…
It is shown how, within the framework of general relativity and without the introduction of wormholes, it is possible to modify a spacetime in a way that allows a spaceship to travel with an arbitrarily large speed. By a purely local…
In this article, I argue that modern spacetime physics causes problems for a number of traditional accounts of modality, but also offers important new ideas about the connection between modal and non-modal features of reality. I suggest…
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…
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…
In prior work, we have argued that spacetime functionalism provides tools for clarifying the conceptual difficulties specifically linked to the emergence of spacetime in certain approaches to quantum gravity. We argue in this article that…
This paper argues against the proposal to draw from current research into a physical theory of quantum gravity the ontological conclusion that spacetime or spatiotemporal relations are not fundamental. As things stand, the status of this…
A new formulation of what may be called the "fundamental theorem of the theory of relativity" is presented and proved in (3+1)-space-time, based on the full classification of special transformations and the corresponding velocity addition…
We consider the domain of applicability of general relativity (GR), as a classical theory of gravity, by considering its applications to a variety of settings of physical interest as well as its relationship with real observations. We argue…
We give a brief review of the problem of quantum gravity. After the discussion of the nonrenormalizability of general relativity, we briefly mention the main research directions which aim to resolve this problem. Our attention then focuses…
Paralleling the formal derivation of general relativity as a flat spacetime theory, we introduce in addition a preferred temporal foliation. The physical interpretation of the formalism is considered in the context of 5-dimensional…
Recently, in a series of papers, we established the existence and found a general solution for the simultaneously rotating and twisting locally rotationally symmetric spacetimes in general relativity, which can model inhomogeneous and…
General Relativity is the modern theory of gravitation. It has replaced the newtonian theory in the description of the gravitational phenomena. In spite of the remarkable success of the General Relativity Theory, the newtonian gravitational…