{"title":"A note on the notion of now and time flow in special relativity","authors":"Mario Bacelar Valente","doi":"arxiv-2409.04450","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"With special relativity, we seem to be facing a conundrum. It is a very\nwell-tested theory; in this way, the Minkowski spacetime must be \"capturing\"\nessential features of space and time. However, its geometry seems to be\nincompatible with any sort of global notion of time. We might only have local\nnotions of now (present moment) and time flow, at best. In this note, we will\nexplore the possibility that a pretty much global notion of now (and time flow)\nmight be hiding in plain sight in the geometry of the Minkowski spacetime.","PeriodicalId":501042,"journal":{"name":"arXiv - PHYS - History and Philosophy of Physics","volume":"44 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0000,"publicationDate":"2024-08-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"arXiv - PHYS - History and Philosophy of Physics","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/arxiv-2409.04450","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"","JCRName":"","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
With special relativity, we seem to be facing a conundrum. It is a very
well-tested theory; in this way, the Minkowski spacetime must be "capturing"
essential features of space and time. However, its geometry seems to be
incompatible with any sort of global notion of time. We might only have local
notions of now (present moment) and time flow, at best. In this note, we will
explore the possibility that a pretty much global notion of now (and time flow)
might be hiding in plain sight in the geometry of the Minkowski spacetime.