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Space, Time, and Stuff

Online ISBN:
9780191738333
Print ISBN:
9780199696604
Publisher:
Oxford University Press
Book

Space, Time, and Stuff

Frank Arntzenius
Frank Arntzenius
Oxford University
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Published online:
24 May 2012
Published in print:
1 January 2012
Online ISBN:
9780191738333
Print ISBN:
9780199696604
Publisher:
Oxford University Press

Abstract

Much of this book can be seen as an attempt to show that physics is geometry, an attempt to show that the fundamental structure of the physical world is purely geometrical structure. Along the way, some non-standard views about the structure of spacetime and its inhabitants are examined, such as the idea that space and time, literally, are pointless, the idea that quantum mechanics is a completely local and separable 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 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, metaphysics in particular, plays an important role in this book: 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!

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