Related papers: Comments on the Problem of Time
The concept of proper time cannot be just taken over from classical theory and applied to quantum theory. There are a number of serious ambiguities related to it. Similarly, the concept of mass has some inconsistencies attached to it. We…
This Series of Articles provides a local resolution of this major longstanding foundational problem between QM and GR, or, more generally, between Background Dependent and Background Independent Physics. We focus on the classical version;…
A practical way to deal with the problem of time in quantum cosmology and quantum gravity is proposed. The main tool is effective equations, which mainly restrict explicit considerations to semiclassical regimes but have the crucial…
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…
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,…
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…
It is rarely emphasized in modern physics textbooks that our definitions of space and time have to reflect their complete interdependence. Our intuitive methods of always picturing one-dimensional space as a sum of unit-length rods and of…
We show that the arrow of time is intimately related to the geometry and topology of the whole universe, and is therefore best understood as a cosmological phenomenon.
This paper presents alternative ideas on the physics of time that lead to a new interpretation of cosmological redshifts. These ideas are based on the close relationship between the speed of time and entropy processes in our universe. I…
Albert and Callender have challenged the received view that theories like classical electrodynamics and non-relativistic quantum mechanics are time reversal invariant. They claim that time reversal should correspond to the mere reversal of…
This paper presents yet another personal reflection on one the most important concepts in both science and the humanities: time. This elusive notion has been not only bothering philosophers since Plato and Aristotle. It goes throughout…
I suggest that the common unease with taking quantum mechanics as a fundamental description of nature (the "measurement problem") could derive from the use of an incorrect notion, as the unease with the Lorentz transformations before…
The canonical formalism of general relativity affords a particularly interesting characterisation of the infamous hole argument. It also provides a natural formalism in which to relate the hole argument to the problem of time in classical…
This is a philosophy paper rather than mathematical physics work. I will publish it in some other place.
Based on the notion of time translation, we develop a formalism to deal with the logic of quantum properties at different times. In our formalism it is possible to enlarge the usual notion of context to include composed properties involving…
This work explores Boltzmann's time hypothesis, which associates the perceived direction of "time flow" with the second law of thermodynamics. We discuss mechanisms that can be responsible for the action of the second law, for directional…
It is postulated there is not a precise static instant in time underlying a dynamical physical process at which the relative position of a body in relative motion or a specific physical magnitude would theoretically be precisely determined.…
This is a chapter for an upcoming book, "Space, Time, and the Limits of Human Understanding", edited by Shyam Wuppuluri and Giancarlo Ghirardi. I first present the classical picture of flat space and ever-flowing time, as generally accepted…
In a way similar to classical mechanics where we have the concept of inertial time as expressed in the motions of bodies, in the (special) theory of relativity we can regard the inertial time as the only notion of time at play. The inertial…
Antiparticles may be interpreted as ordinary particles travelling backwards in time and the two descriptions are considered equivalent, at least in special relativity and relativistic quantum mechanics. It is suggested that, vice versa, the…