Philosophy of Physics

In philosophy, philosophy of physics deals with conceptual and interpretational issues in modern physics, and often overlaps with research done by certain kinds of theoretical physicists. Philosophy of physics can be very broadly lumped into three main areas:

The existence and nature of space and time (or space-time) are central topics in the philosophy of physics.

Time is often thought to be a fundamental quantity (that is, a quantity which cannot be defined in terms of other quantities), because time seems like fundamentally basic concept, such that one cannot define it in terms of anything simpler. However, certain theories such as loop quantum gravity claim that spacetime is emergent. As Carlo Rovelli, one of the founders of loop quantum gravity has said: "No more fields on spacetime: just fields on fields". Time is defined via measurement—by its standard time interval. Currently, the standard time interval (called "conventional second", or simply "second") is defined as 9,192,631,770 oscillations of a hyperfine transition in the 133 caesium atom. (ISO 31-1). What time is and how it works follows from the above definition. Time then can be combined mathematically with the fundamental quantities of space and mass to define concepts such as velocity, momentum, energy, and fields.

Both Newton and Galileo, as well as most people up until the 20th century, thought that time was the same for everyone everywhere. Our modern conception of time is based on Einstein's theory of relativity and Minkowski's spacetime, in which rates of time run differently in different inertial frames of reference, and space and time are merged into spacetime. Time may be quantized, with the theoretical smallest time being on the order of the Planck time. Einstein's general relativity as well as the redshift of the light from receding distant galaxies indicate that the entire Universe and possibly space-time itself began about 13.8 billion years ago in the big bang. Einstein's theory of special relativity mostly (though not universally) made A-theories of time, where there is something metaphysically special about the present seem much less plausible, as the reference-frame-dependence of time seems to not allow the idea of a privileged present moment.

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