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These notions imply that absolute space and time do not depend upon physical events, but are a backdrop or stage setting within which physical phenomena occur. Thus, every object has an absolute state of motion relative to absolute space, so that an object must be either in a state of absolute rest, or moving at some absolute speed. [5]
Philosophy of space and time is the branch of philosophy concerned with the issues surrounding the ontology and epistemology of space and time. While such ideas have been central to philosophy from its inception, the philosophy of space and time was both an inspiration for and a central aspect of early analytic philosophy. The subject focuses ...
In physics, spacetime, also called the space-time continuum, is a mathematical model that fuses the three dimensions of space and the one dimension of time into a single four-dimensional continuum. Spacetime diagrams are useful in visualizing and understanding relativistic effects, such as how different observers perceive where and when events ...
Debates concerning the nature, essence and the mode of existence of space date back to antiquity; namely, to treatises like the Timaeus of Plato, or Socrates in his reflections on what the Greeks called khôra (i.e. "space"), or in the Physics of Aristotle (Book IV, Delta) in the definition of topos (i.e. place), or in the later "geometrical conception of place" as "space qua extension" in the ...
According to the absolute theory of space, it is a homogeneous structure which exists and is independent of other things. [2] The Newtonian arguments of this theory, particularly those concerned with the ontological status of space and time, had been related to the existence of God through the concepts of absolute space and absolute time. [3]
The problem of time is central to these theoretical attempts. It remains unclear how time is related to quantum probability, whether time is fundamental or a consequence of processes, and whether time is approximate, among other issues. Different theories try different answers to the questions but no clear solution has emerged. [6]
The proper time interval between two events on a world line is the change in proper time, which is independent of coordinates, and is a Lorentz scalar. [1] The interval is the quantity of interest, since proper time itself is fixed only up to an arbitrary additive constant, namely the setting of the clock at some event along the world line.
These arguments, and a discussion of the distinctions between absolute and relative time, space, place and motion, appear in a scholium at the end of Definitions sections in Book I of Newton's work, The Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy (1687) (not to be confused with General Scholium at the end of Book III), which established the foundations of classical mechanics and introduced ...