Reconsidering Relativistic Causality

DOI10.1080/02698590701589585zbMATH Open1130.83300arXiv0708.2189OpenAlexW2084069628MaRDI QIDQ5433129FDOQ5433129

Authors: Jeremy Butterfield 

Publication date: 19 December 2007

Published in: International Studies in the Philosophy of Science (Search for Journal in Brave)

Abstract: I discuss the idea of relativistic causality, i.e. the requirement that causal processes or signals can propagate only within the light-cone. After briefly locating this requirement in the philosophy of causation, my main aim is to draw philosophers' attention to the fact that it is subtle, indeed problematic, in relativistic quantum physics: there are scenarios in which it seems to fail. I consign to an Appendix two such scenarios, which are familiar to philosophers of physics: the pilot-wave approach, and the Newton-Wigner representation. I instead stress two unfamiliar scenarios: the Drummond-Hathrell and Scharnhorst effects. These effects also illustrate a general moral in the philosophy of geometry: that the mathematical structures, especially the metric tensor, that represent geometry get their geometric significance by dint of detailed physical arguments.

Full work available at URL: https://arxiv.org/abs/0708.2189

Recommendations

• Relativistic causality
• Faster-than-\(c\) signals, special relativity, and causality
• Relativistic causality in algebraic quantum field theory
• Re-thinking local causality
• Causality and chance in relativistic quantum field theories

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

Equations of motion in general relativity and gravitational theory (83C10) Special relativity (83A05) Einstein's equations (general structure, canonical formalism, Cauchy problems) (83C05) Philosophy of mathematics (00A30)

Cites Work

• Title not available (Why is that?)
• The Large Scale Structure of Space-Time
• Existence of local covariant time ordered products of quantum fields in curved spacetime
• Local Wick polynomials and time ordered products of quantum fields in curved spacetime
• Title not available (Why is that?)
• Micro-local approach to the Hadamard condition in quantum field theory on curved space-time
• Title not available (Why is that?)
• Title not available (Why is that?)
• Faster-than-\(c\) signals, special relativity, and causality
• THE PRINCIPLE OF LOCALITY AND QUANTUM FIELD THEORY ON (NON GLOBALLY HYPERBOLIC) CURVED SPACETIMES
• Julian Barbour, The End of Time: The Next Revolution in Our Understanding of the Universe. London: Weidenfeld and Nicholson, 1999. ISBN 0 297 81985 2.
• Quantum Chance and Non-locality
• The velocities of light in modified QED vacua
• The principle of equivalence
• The Casimir effect and the interpretation of the vacuum

Cited In (18)

• The limitations of inertial frame spacetime functionalism
• Abnormal light propagation and the underdetermination of theory by evidence in astrophysics
• Relativity theory refounded
• Indications of the existence of another relativity
• Space-time constructivism \textit{vs.} modal provincialism: Or, how special relativistic theories needn't show Minkowski chronogeometry
• Geometrical Constructivism and Modal Relationalism: Further Aspects of the Dynamical/Geometrical Debate
• Space-time philosophy reconstructed \textit{via} massive Nordström scalar gravities? Laws \textit{vs.} geometry, conventionality, and underdetermination
• Minkowski spacetime and Lorentz invariance: the cart and the horse or two sides of a single coin?
• The dynamical approach to spin-2 gravity
• Against dogma: on superluminal propagation in classical electromagnetism
• Does the Reeh-Schlieder theorem violate relativistic causality?
• Mach's principle as action-at-a-distance in GR: the causality question
• Relativistic causality
• Comment on ‘Do electromagnetic waves always propagate along null geodesics?’
• Emergence, reduction and supervenience: a varied landscape
• Stochasticity and Bell-type quantum field theory
• On miracles and spacetime
• Relativistic causality in algebraic quantum field theory

This page was built for publication: Reconsidering Relativistic Causality

Report a bug (only for logged in users!)Click here to report a bug for this page (MaRDI item Q5433129)