Related papers: Against Pointillisme about Geometry
Current approaches to the problem of inertia attempt to explain the inertial properties of matter by expressing the inertial mass appearing in Newton's second law of motion in terms of some other more fundamental interaction. One…
One considers geometry with the intransitive equaivalence relation. Such a geometry is a physical geometry, i.e. it is described completely by the world function, which is a half of the squared distance function. The physical geometry…
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…
Gravity is understood as a geometrization of spacetime. But spacetime is also the manifold of the boundary values of the spinless point particle in a variational approach. Since all known matter, baryons, leptons and gauge bosons are…
Space-Time in general relativity is a dynamical entity because it is subject to the Einstein field equations. The space-time metric provides different geometrical structures: conformal, volume, projective and linear connection. A deep…
It is widely accepted that the notion of an inertial frame is central to Newtonian mechanics and that the correct space-time structure underlying $\text{Newton's}$ methods in $\textit{Principia}$ is neo-Newtonian or Galilean space-time. I…
This paper aims to discuss two issues that can have a significant impact on the foundations of the theory of gravitation: (1). The existence of relativity of space-time geometry with respect to the properties of used reference frame, which…
We consider the possibility that the basic space of physics is not spacetime, but configuration space. We illustrate this on the example with a system of gravitationally interacting point particles. It turns out that such system can be…
Being mathematics a natural language to Mankind and to physics, it must be constantly adapted to our necessities and our natural perception. Then, mathematical concepts are not absolute to reality. Although mathematical theories are…
The notion of ``fundamental constant'' is heavily theory-laden. A natural, fairly precise formulation is possible in the context of the standard model (here defined to include gravity). Some fundamental constants have profound geometric…
Physical geometry studies mutual disposition of geometrical objects and points in space, or space-time, which is described by the distance function $ d$, or by the world function $\sigma =d^{2}/2$. One suggests a new general method of the…
Relational mechanics is a reformulation of mechanics (classical or quantum) for which space is relational. This means that the configuration of an $N$-particle system is a shape, which is what remains when the effects of rotations,…
Physical geometry studies mutual disposition of geometrical objects and points in space, or space-time, which is described by the distance function d, or by the world function \sigma =d^{2}/2. One suggests a new general method of the…
The geometric foundations of General Relativity are revisited, with particular attention to its gauge invariance, as a key to understanding the true nature of spacetime. Beyond the common image of spacetime as a deformable 'fabric' filling…
All gauge theories need ``something fixed'' even as ``something changes.'' Underlying the implementation of these ideas all major physical theories make indispensable use of an elaborately designed spacetime model as the ``something…
All differences between the role of space and time in nature are explained by proposing the principles in which none of the spacetime coordinates has an {\it a priori} special role. Spacetime is treated as a non-dynamical manifold, with a…
In a previous effort [arXiv:1708.05492] we have created a framework that explains why topological structures naturally arise within a scientific theory; namely, they capture the requirements of experimental verification. This is…
The physical world is quantum. However, our description of the quantum physics still relies much on concepts in classical physics and in some cases with `quantized' interpretations. The most important case example is that of spacetime. We…
As repeatedly emphasized by Einstein our knowledge of the structure of space and time is based entirely on inferences from observations of physical objects and processes. At the most fundamental level these objects and processes are…
I discuss the ontological assumptions and implications of General Relativity. I maintain that General Relativity is a theory about gravitational fields, not about space-time. The latter is a more basic ontological category, that emerges…