Related papers: Causation & Physics
Causality is one of the most fundamental -- and yet elusive -- concepts in physics. From its intuitive role in everyday experience to its formal and often implicit role in scientific theories, causality has challenged philosophers and…
Classical physics encompasses the study of physical phenomena which ranges from local (a point) to nonlocal (a region) in space and/or time. We discuss the concept of spatial and temporal nonlocality. However, one of the likely implications…
Causality never gained the status of a "law" or "principle" in physics. Some recent literature even popularized the false idea that causality is a notion that should be banned from theory. Such misconception relies on an alleged…
We begin with a brief summary of issues encountered involving causality in quantum theory, placing careful emphasis on the assumptions involved in results such as the EPR paradox and Bell's inequality. We critique some solutions to the…
The principle of common cause is discussed as a possible fundamental principle of physics. Some revisions of Reichenbach's formulation of the principle are given, which lead to a version given by Bell. Various similar forms are compared and…
Causality is a non-obvious concept that is often considered to be related to temporality. In this paper we present a number of past and present approaches to the definition of temporality and causality from philosophical, physical, and…
We pursue research leading towards the nature of causality in the universe. We establish the equation of the universe's evolution from the universe-state function and its series expansion, in which causes and effects connect together to…
In this review paper, we consider the fundamental nature of time and causality, most particularly, in the context of the theories of special and general relativity. We also discuss the issue of closed timelike curves in the context of…
We research the natural causality of the Universe. We find that the equation of causality provides very good results on physics. That is our first endeavour and success in describing a quantitative expression of the law of causality. Hence,…
A tradition handed down among physicists maintains that classical physics is a perfectly deterministic theory capable of predicting the future with absolute certainty, independently of any interpretations. It also tells that it was quantum…
Causal reasoning is essential to science, yet quantum theory challenges it. Quantum correlations violating Bell inequalities defy satisfactory causal explanations within the framework of classical causal models. What is more, a theory…
The constraints arising for a general set of causal relations, both classically and quantumly, are still poorly understood. As a step in exploring this question, we consider a coherently controlled superposition of "direct-cause" and…
The landscape of causal relations that can hold among a set of systems in quantum theory is richer than in classical physics. In particular, a pair of time-ordered systems can be related as cause and effect or as the effects of a common…
Understanding the causal influences that hold among parts of a system is critical both to explaining that system's natural behaviour and to controlling it through targeted interventions. In a quantum world, understanding causal relations is…
It has been a long time issue in statistical physics how to combine reversible microscopic equations with irreversible macroscopic behavior. Recently, Evans and Searles have suggested causality as the key concept for a solution to the…
The idea that events obey a definite causal order is deeply rooted in our understanding of the world and at the basis of the very notion of time. But where does causal order come from, and is it a necessary property of nature? We address…
Causality is a subject of philosophical debate and a central scientific issue with a long history. In the statistical domain, the study of cause and effect based on the notion of `fairness' in comparisons dates back several hundred years,…
Over the past two decades, the rapid surge in data-intensive computational techniques for statistical modeling may have had the effect of diminishing the use of applied mathematics in causal scientific inquiry. In this paper, co-authored by…
Quantum causality extends the conventional notion of fixed causal structure by allowing channels and operations to act in an indefinite causal order. The importance of such an indefinite causal order ranges from the foundational---e.g.…
In light of a recent reformulation of Bell's theorem from causal principles by Howard Wiseman and the author, I argue that the conflict between quantum theory and relativity brought up by Bell's work can be softened by a revision of our…