Related papers: Is time continuous?

I explain in what sense the structure of space and time is probably vague or indefinite, a notion I define. This leads to the mathematical representation of location in space and time by a vague interval. From this, a principle of…

Following the approach of Julien Lesgourgues [astro-ph/0409426], we analyze the mathematical structure of the time co-ordinate of present day cosmological models, where these models include a cosmological constant term to account for the…

Dynamics, the study of change, is normally the subject of mechanics. Whether the chosen mechanics is ``fundamental'' and deterministic or ``phenomenological'' and stochastic, all changes are described relative to an external time. Here we…

Arguments are given that time must be defined in an operative manner,i.e., by constructing devices which can serve as clocks.The investigation of such devices leads to the conclusion that there is a principal uncertainity of time if one…

Set-theoretical, physical, and intuitive notions of continuum are compared. It is shown that the independence of the continuum hypothesis determines status and properties of the set of intermediate cardinality. The intermediate set is a…

The Classical Coordinate System is geometrical by nature with time being an external variable. Constructing a classical coordinate system employs a point-like signal with infinite speed. In Special Relativity Theory the speed is limited but…

Attempts to quantize general relativity encounter an odd problem. The Hamiltonian that normally generates time evolution vanishes in the case of general relativity as a result of diffeomorphism invariance. The theory seems to be saying that…

We examine in greater detail the proposal that time is the conjugate of the constants of nature. Fundamentally distinct times are associated with different constants, a situation often found in "relational time" settings. We show in detail…

The idea of a moving present or `now' seems to form part of our most basic beliefs about reality. Such a present, however, is not reflected in any of our theories of the physical world. I show in this article that presentism, the doctrine…

It is a remarkable fact that all processes occurring in the observable Universe are irreversible, whereas the equations through which the fundamental laws of physics are formulated are invariant under time reversal. The emergence of…

In this paper we propose that cosmological time is a quantum observable that does not commute with other quantum operators essential for the definition of cosmological states, notably the cosmological constant. This is inspired by…

Even though the concepts of time and space are basic concepts of physics, they have not been vouchsafed a constructive definition. As to space, this is no wonder because a correct notion of space cannot be formed in the frame of the…

Although time is one of our most intuitive physical concepts, its understanding at the fundamental level is still an open question in physics. For instance, time in quantum mechanics and general relativity are two distinct and incompatible…

Time has always played a crucial role in cosmology. I review some of the aspects of the present cosmological model which are more directly related to time, such as: the definition of a cosmic time; the existence of typical timescales and…

Time is one of the undisputed foundations of our life in the real world. Here it is argued that inside small isolated quantum systems, time does not pass as we are used to, and it is primarily in this sense that quantum objects enjoy only…

General Relativity traces the evolution of our Universe back to a Big Bang singularity. To probe physics before the singularity -- if indeed there is a ``before'' -- we must turn to quantum gravity. The Causal Set approach to quantum…

We argue that (1) our perception of time through change and (2) the gap between reality and our observation of it are at the heart of both quantum mechanics and the dynamical mechanism of physical systems. We suggest that the origin of…

We distinguish two different concepts of time that play a role in physics: \textit{geometric time} and \textit{creative time}. The former is the time of deterministic physics and merely parametrizes a given evolution. The latter is instead…

We review the idea, due to Einstein, Eddington, Hoyle and Ballard, that time is a subjective label, whose primary purpose is to order events, perhaps in a higher-dimensional universe. In this approach, all moments in time exist…

It is often claimed that the fundamental laws of physics are deterministic and time-symmetric and that therefore our experience of the passage of time is an illusion. This paper will critically discuss these claims and show that they are…