Related papers: Against Pointillisme about Geometry
The unsatisfactory status of the search for a consistent and predictive quantization of gravity is taken as motivation to study the question whether geometrical laws could be more fundamental than quantization procedures. In such an…
Weyl famously argued that if space were discrete, then Euclidean geometry could not hold even approximately. Since then, many philosophers have responded to this argument by advancing alternative accounts of discrete geometry that recover…
We discuss how developments in physics often imply in the need that spacetime acquires an increasingly richer and complex structure. General Relativity was the first theory to show us the way to connect space and time with the physical…
In any attempt to build a quantum theory of gravity, a central issue is to unravel the structure of space-time at the smallest scale. Of particular relevance is the possible definition of coordinate functions within the theory and the study…
We present a new geometry of spacetime where events may be positive dimensional. This geometry is obtained by applying the identity of indiscernibles, which is a fundamental principle of quantum statistics, to time. Quantum nonlocality…
The usual quantization of a classical space-time field does not touch the non-geometrical character of quantum mechanics. We believe that the deep problems of unification of general relativity and quantum mechanics are rooted in this poor…
To incorporate quantum nonlocality into general relativity, we propose that the preparation and measurement of a quantum system are simultaneous events. To make progress in realizing this proposal, we introduce a spacetime geometry that is…
It will be shown that, in comparison with the pre-relativistic Galileo-invariant conceptions, special relativity tells us nothing new about the geometry of spacetime. It simply calls something else "spacetime", and this something else has…
Most physics theories are deterministic, with the notable exception of quantum mechanics which, however, comes plagued by the so-called measurement problem. This state of affairs might well be due to the inability of standard mathematics to…
Based on a clear ontology of material individuals, we analyze in detail the factual semantics of quantum theory, and argue that the basic mathematical formalism of quantum theory is just okay with (a certain form of ) realism and that it is…
Starting from the revelation of the nature of inertial forces, this article discusses the subdivision of the basic physical concept of space-time and raises questions about the metric of standard cosmology. A new form of particle dynamics…
Attempts to quantize general relativity encounter an odd problem. The Hamiltonian that normally generates time evolution vanishes in the case of general relativity as a result of diffeomorphism invariance. The theory seems to be saying that…
Conventional approaches to quantum gravity regard quantum principles, such as nonlocality and superposition, as fundamental properties of nature and therefore argue that gravity must also be quantized. In contrast, this work introduces a…
We live in a 3+1 space-time that is intended as a description of the universe with three space dimensions and one time dimension. Space-time dimensionality seems so natural that it is rarely criticized. Experiments and the highly successful…
We argue that space-time properties are not absolute with respect to the used frame of reference as is to be expected according to ideas of relativity of space and time properties by Berkley - Leibnitz - Mach- Poincar\'{e}. From this point…
We provide here a philosophical basis for [arXiv:2012.03994, arXiv:2107.06693] based on the notion of spacetime relationalism. We argue that the view which is more cleanly compatible with GR is that in which the spacetime manifold is a…
The quantum mechanics description of a physical object stretched in space and stable in time from the relativistic space-time properties point of view, introduced in special theory of relativity, is considered and analysed. The mathematical…
We give a critical analysis of the conceptual foundations of special relativity. We formulate a simple operational criterion for distinguishing between noninertial and inertial frames which is introduced prior to geometry. We associate the…
An asymmetry exists between time and space in the sense that physical systems inevitably evolve over time whereas there is no corresponding ubiquitous translation over space. The asymmetry, which is presumed to be elemental, is represented…
It is the matter of fact that quantum mechanics operates with notions that are not determined in the frame of the mechanics' formalism. Among them we can call the notion of "wave-particle" (that, however, does not appear in both classical…