Related papers: Minkowski space-time: a glorious non-entity
A modern elementary introduction to special relativity for advanced school children or first-year university students, in Russian. I try to demonstrate that relativity does not contradict common sense; on the contrary, it follows from…
We give a brief overview of the nature of spacetime emerging from string theory. This is radically different from the familiar spacetime of Einstein's relativity. At a perturbative level, the spacetime metric appears as ``coupling…
The Equivalence Principle (EP) is not one of the ``universal'' principles of physics (like the Action Principle). It is a heuristic hypothesis which was introduced by Einstein in 1907, and used by him to construct his theory of General…
Einstein's theory of general relativity is based on the premise that the physical laws take the same form in all coordinate systems. However, it still presumes a preferred decomposition of the total kinematic Hilbert space into local…
Emergent gravity views spacetime as an entity emergent from a more complete theory of interacting fundamental constituents valid at much finer resolution or higher energies, usually assumed to be above the Planck energy. In this view…
The concept of time-space defined in an earlier paper of the author is a certain generalization of the so-called space-time. In this paper we introduce the concept of time-space manifolds. In the homogeneous case, a time-space manifold is a…
We introduce a framework of structural approximation to represent Lorentz-invariant Minkowski space-time as the limit of finite cyclic lattices, each equipped with the action of a finite quasi-Lorentz group. This construction provides a…
Einstein, in his "Zur Elektrodynamik bewegter Korper", gave a physical (operational) meaning to "time" of a remote event in describing "motion" by introducing the concept of "synchronous stationary clocks located at different places". But…
While Einstein clocks synchronization process is performed, one has a well defined region in which the clocks are synchronized and another one in which the clocks are not yet synchronized. The frontier between them evolves differently from…
The starting point of the theory of Special Relativity$^1$ is the Lorentz transformation, which in essence describes the lack of absolute measurements of space and time. These effects came about when one applies the Second Relativity…
The nature of gravity is fundamental to understand the scaffolding of the Universe and its evolution. Einstein's general theory of relativity has been scrutinized for over ninety five years and shown to describe accurately all phenomena…
It is a little known fact that while he was developing his theory of general relativity, Einstein's initial idea was a variable speed of light theory. Indeed space-time curvature can be mimicked by a speed of light $c(r)$ that depends on…
This paper has pedagogical motivation. It is not uncommon that students have great difficulty in accepting the new concepts of standard special relativity, since these seem contrary to common sense. Experience shows that geometrical or…
We consider Hilbert's problem of the axioms of Physics at a qualitative or conceptual level. This issue is more pressing than ever as we seek to understand how both General Relativity and quantum theory could emerge from some deeper theory…
In the history of physics 1905 can be considered as the year of Einstein's proclamation of independence of events. Indeed the concept of independent events occupies a essential place in the three main 1905 Einstein's papers (quanta of…
A panoramic view, preceded by a short background of Newtonian mechanics and Maxwellian electrodynamics, is offered on the extent of how Einstein's space-time geometry, believed to be central to an understanding of the structure of the…
Popular wisdom amongst theoretical physicists says that the continuum structure of spacetime is probably not elementary, but rather emergent. While many arguments to support that view arise from speculative ideas, the argument can also be…
In a 1967 paper, Zeeman proposed a new topology for Minkowski spacetime, physically motivated but much more complicated than the standard one. Here a detailed study is given of some properties of the Zeeman topology which had not been…
The formulation of quantum field theory in Minkowski spacetime, which emerges from the unification of special relativity and quantum mechanics, is based on treating time as a parameter, assuming a fixed arrow of time, and requiring that…
On incorporating special relativity theory into an extended equivalence principle, post-Newtonian gravitational phenomena beyond that originally predicted by Einstein are predicted (required), such as geodetic and gravitomagnetic…