Related papers: Relativity theory does not imply that the future a…
Time is absolute in standard quantum theory and dynamical in general relativity. The combination of both theories into a theory of quantum gravity leads therefore to a "problem of time". In my essay I shall investigate those consequences…
This paper describes a continuation of the program of causal views, in which the world consists of nothing but a vast number of partial views of its past. Each view is associated to an event, and is a representation of the immediate causal…
This paper discusses how the transactional interpretation of quantum mechanics can provide for a natural account of the emergence of spacetime events from a quantum substratum. In this account, spacetime is not a substantive manifold that…
The discovery that the Universe is accelerating in its expansion has brought the basic concept of cosmic expansion into question. An analysis of the evolution of this concept suggests that the paradigm that was finally settled into prior to…
Relativistic invariance of the vacuum is (or follows from) one of the Wightman axioms which is commonly believed to be true. Without these axioms, here we present a direct and general proof of continuous relativistic invariance of all…
Realist interpretations of quantum mechanics presuppose the existence of elements of reality that are independent of the actions used to reveal them. Such a view is challenged by several no-go theorems that show quantum correlations cannot…
Following the observational evidence for cosmic acceleration which may exclude a possibility for the universe to recollapse to a second singularity, we review alternative scenarios of its future evolution. Although the de Sitter asymptotic…
According to Aristotle "time is the number of change with respect to the before and after". That's certainly a vague concept, but at the same time it's both simple and satisfying from a philosophical point of view: things do not change…
We are emerging from a period of consolidation in particle physics. Its great, historic achievement was to establish the Theory of Matter. This Theory will serve as our description of ordinary matter under ordinary conditions -- allowing…
A closer look (with hindsight) at Newtonian and relativistic kinematics reveals two things. Not surprisingly, Newtonian time remains the empty and artificial - albeit useful - figment it is known to be. Quite unexpectedly however it turns…
Theoretical physics is the search for simple and universal mathematical descriptions of the natural world. In contrast, much of modern biology is an exploration of the complexity and diversity of life. For many, this contrast is prima facie…
In quantum theory it is possible to explain time, and dynamics, in terms of entanglement. This is the timeless approach to time, which assumes that the universe is in a stationary state, where two non-interacting subsystems, the clock and…
A review is given of the implications of the absence of an intrinsic notion of instantaneous 3-space, so that a clock synchronization convention has to be introduced, for relativistic theories.
Flat space-time has not heretofore been thought a suitable locus in which to construct model universes because of the presumed necessity of incorporating gravitation in such models and because of the historical lack of a theory of…
A quantum theory of the universe consists of a theory of its quantum dynamics and a theory of its quantum state The theory predicts quantum multiverses in the form of decoherent sets of alternative histories describing the evolution of the…
After stating the measurement problem, physicists usually assume the problem to be coming from the measurement part. Since classical probabilities also collapse when updating information, there is nothing special about quantum state…
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…
In non relativistic physics it is assumed that both chronological ordering and causal ordering of events (telling whether there exists a causal relationship between two events or not) are absolute, observer independent properties. In…
What happens to the causal structure of a world when time is reversed? At first glance it seems there are two possible answers: the causal relations are reversed, or they are not. I argue that neither of these answers is correct: we should…
The Newtonian simulations describing the formation of large-scale structures do not include relativistic effects. A new approach to this problem is proposed, which consists of splitting the Hawking-Hayward quasi-local energy of a closed…