Space, Time, and Stuff


Book Description

Frank Arntzenius presents a series of radical ideas about the structure of space and time, and establishes a new metaphysical position which holds that the fundamental structure of the physical world is purely geometrical structure. He argues that we should broaden our conceptual horizons and accept that spaces other than spacetime may exist.




Space, Time, and Stuff


Book Description

Frank Arntzenius presents a series of radical new ideas about the structure of space and time. Space, Time, and Stuff is an attempt to show that physics is geometry: that the fundamental structure of the physical world is purely geometrical structure. Along the way, he examines some non-standard views about the structure of spacetime and its inhabitants, including the idea that space and time are pointless, the idea that quantum mechanics is a completely local theory, the idea that antiparticles are just particles travelling back in time, and the idea that time has no structure whatsoever. The main thrust of the book, however, is that there are good reasons to believe that spaces other than spacetime exist, and that it is the existence of these additional spaces that allows one to reduce all of physics to geometry. Philosophy, and metaphysics in particular, plays an important role here: the assumption that the fundamental laws of physics are simple in terms of the fundamental physical properties and relations is pivotal. Without this assumption one gets nowhere. That is to say, when trying to extract the fundamental structure of the world from theories of physics one ignores philosophy at one's peril!




Space-time and Beyond


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The Geometry of Minkowski Spacetime


Book Description

This mathematically rigorous treatment examines Zeeman's characterization of the causal automorphisms of Minkowski spacetime and the Penrose theorem concerning the apparent shape of a relativistically moving sphere. Other topics include the construction of a geometric theory of the electromagnetic field; an in-depth introduction to the theory of spinors; and a classification of electromagnetic fields in both tensor and spinor form. Appendixes introduce a topology for Minkowski spacetime and discuss Dirac's famous "Scissors Problem." Appropriate for graduate-level courses, this text presumes only a knowledge of linear algebra and elementary point-set topology. 1992 edition. 43 figures.




The Biggest Ideas in the Universe


Book Description

INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER “Most appealing... technical accuracy and lightness of tone... Impeccable.”—Wall Street Journal “A porthole into another world.”—Scientific American “Brings science dissemination to a new level.”—Science The most trusted explainer of the most mind-boggling concepts pulls back the veil of mystery that has too long cloaked the most valuable building blocks of modern science. Sean Carroll, with his genius for making complex notions entertaining, presents in his uniquely lucid voice the fundamental ideas informing the modern physics of reality. Physics offers deep insights into the workings of the universe but those insights come in the form of equations that often look like gobbledygook. Sean Carroll shows that they are really like meaningful poems that can help us fly over sierras to discover a miraculous multidimensional landscape alive with radiant giants, warped space-time, and bewilderingly powerful forces. High school calculus is itself a centuries-old marvel as worthy of our gaze as the Mona Lisa. And it may come as a surprise the extent to which all our most cutting-edge ideas about black holes are built on the math calculus enables. No one else could so smoothly guide readers toward grasping the very equation Einstein used to describe his theory of general relativity. In the tradition of the legendary Richard Feynman lectures presented sixty years ago, this book is an inspiring, dazzling introduction to a way of seeing that will resonate across cultural and generational boundaries for many years to come.




The Future of Spacetime


Book Description

Where the science of black holes, gravitational waves, and time travel will likely lead us, as reported by spacetime's most important theoreticians and observers.




Space, Time, and Spacetime


Book Description

In this book, Lawrence Sklar demonstrates the interdependence of science and philosophy by examining a number of crucial problems on the nature of space and time—problems that require for their resolution the resources of philosophy and of physics. The overall issues explored are our knowledge of the geometry of the world, the existence of spacetime as an entity over and above the material objects of the world, the relation between temporal order and causal order, and the problem of the direction of time. Without neglecting the most subtle philosophical points or the most advanced contributions of contemporary physics, the author has taken pains to make his explorations intelligible to the reader with no advanced training in physics, mathematics, or philosophy. The arguments are set forth step-by-step, beginning from first principles; and the philosophical discussions are supplemented in detail by nontechnical expositions of crucial features of physical theories.




Space, Time, Matter


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Space, Time, and Deity


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Space-Time Coding


Book Description

The capacity of wireless data communications is lagging behind demands due to unsatisfactory performance of the existing wireless networks, such as low data rates, low spectral efficiency and low quality of service. Space-time coding is an effective transmit diversity technique to combat fading in wireless communications. Space-time codes are a highly bandwidth-efficient approach to signalling within wireless communication that takes advantage of the spatial dimension by transmitting a number of data streams using multiple co-located antennas. There are various approaches to the coding structures, including space-time trellis coded modulation, space-time turbo codes and also layered architectures. The central issue in all these various coding structures is the exploitation of multipath effects in order to achieve very high spectral efficiencies. The spectral efficiencies of traditional wireless systems range between 1-5bps/sec/Hz but by using space-time techniques spectral efficiencies of 20-40bps/sec/Hz have been possible. Hence, space-time coding enables an increase in capacity by an order of magnitude. This is the main reason why space-time codes have been included in the standards for the third generation wireless communication systems and ultimately why Space-time Coding will be in great demand by individuals within industry and academia. The comprehensive understanding of space-time coding is essential in the implementation of 3G, and as the only title currently available, Space-Time Coding will be the standard text for Researchers, telecommunication engineers and network planners, academics and undergraduate/postgraduate students, telecommunications managers and consultants.