Abstract
Theoretical mathematics does not know time and physical space; but given that time and space are both involved in many mathematical models of physics, it is interesting to test them in the main fields of physics, to identify their mathematical properties. The definitions and properties of these two concepts depend to a large extent on the area of physics one is considering: in classical physics, time and space are determinist and invariant; in statistical physics, time and space are probabilistic and invariant; in relativity, time and space are relativistic, covariant, and downgraded mere components of relativistic spacetime; in quantum physics, time and space are probabilistic and invariant. The result is that time and space are polymorphous. In addition to this collapse of the idea of the absolute, neither time nor space can be subjected to experiments, and that includes relativistic experiments. This confirms that no concept can be subjected to physical experiment. This is a further indicator of the non-existence of time and space.
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Notes
- 1.
Hermann Minkowski, Baltic mathématician (1864-1909).
- 2.
Bernard Riemann (1826-1866), German mathematician.
- 3.
Paul Dirac, British physicist born in 1902, Nobel Prize for Physics in 1933.
- 4.
The dates and the places of origin are multiple, but limited to a few cultures.
- 5.
Diverse origins.
- 6.
Variety of properties.
- 7.
Diversity of the forms of organization and use.
- 8.
Evolution of properties and evolution of representations.
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Dassonville, P.F. (2017). Mathematical Properties of Time and Space . In: The Invention of Time and Space. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-46040-6_8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-46040-6_8
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