Related papers: Reality of Time
This essay offers a meta-level analysis in the sociology and history of physics in the context of the so-called "Arrow of Time Problem" or "Two Times Problem," which asserts that the empirically observed directionality of time is in…
A challenge in teaching about special relativity is that a number of the theory's effects are at odds with the intuition of classical physics, as well as student's everyday experience. The relativity of simultaneity, time dilation and…
In Minkowski spacetime, we consider an isolated system made of two pointlike bodies interacting at a distance, in the nonradiative approximation. Our framework is the covariant and a priori Hamiltonian formalism of "predictive relativistic…
Physical time intervals are attributes of single physical object whereas physical space intervals are a relational attribute of two physical objects. Some consequences of the breaking of the space-time exchange symmetry inherent in the…
Contemporary research programs in fundamental physics appear to suggest that there could be two (physical) times---or none at all. This essay articulates these possibilities in the context of quantum gravity, and in particular of…
According to conventional wisdom, presentism is at odds with the theory of relativity. This is supposed to be shown quite simply just by considering the relativity of simultaneity. In this paper I will show that conventional wisdom is…
Relative motion in space with multifractal time (fractional dimension of time close to integer $d_{t}=1+\epsilon (r,t), \epsilon \ll 1$) for "almost" inertial frames of reference (time is almost homogeneous and almost isotropic) is…
We present the arguments suggesting that time is emergent in quantum gravity and discuss extensively, but without any technical detail, the many aspects that can be involved in such emergence. We refer to both the physical issues that need…
It is shown that the force in relativistic mechanics is not only the cause of acceleration of particle relative to an inertial frame of reference, but also the cause of change of the course of time along the particle's trajectory. Therein…
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 argue that the construction of spacetime is personal, specific to each observer, and requires combining aspects of both discovery and creation. What is usually referred to as the block universe then emerges by noting that part of the…
This article deals with empty spacetime and the question of its physical reality. By "empty spacetime" we mean a collection of bare spacetime points, the remains of ridding spacetime of all matter and fields. We ask whether these geometric…
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…
Physicists and philosophers are increasingly prone to regarding our current physical theories as providing 'effective descriptions' of real-world systems. In the context of quantum gravity research, this fuels a common view that the…
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…
The theory of relativity showed that several Newtonian ideas about spacetime are imperfect. We present here some relativistic concepts related to these ideas: simultaneity of events and synchronization of clocks (both along a line in the…
Contrary to our immediate and vivid sensation of past, present, and future as continually shifting non-relational modalities, time remains as tenseless and relational as space in all of the established theories of fundamental physics. Here…
The universe is things which change and called events. The events are matter and field. A boundary divides a system to things and environment. The things belong to the environment have no significant effect on the things belong to the…
Through the analysis of the definition of the duration of proper time of a particle given by the length of its world line, we show that there is no transitivity of the coordinate time function derived from the definition, so there exists an…
Our notions of what is physically 'real' have long been based on the idea that the real is what is immediately apprehended, that is the local or observable, the physically tangible, though there has always been an alternative philosophical…