A Hierarchy of Spacetime Symmetries: Holes to Heraclitus.
We present a hierarchy of symmetry conditions within the context of general relativity. The weakest condition captures a sense in which spacetime is free of symmetry 'holes' of a certain type. All standard models of general relativity satisfy the condition but we show that violations can occur if th...
| Publicado en: | British Journal for the Philosophy of Science Vol. 77; no. 3; pp. 621 - 643 |
|---|---|
| Autores principales: | , |
| Formato: | Artículo |
| Publicado: |
University of Chicago Press
Sep2026
|
| Materias: | |
| Acceso en línea: | Ver este registro en EBSCOhost |
| fields | @attributes: recordID: 1 pdfLink: plink: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=hlh&AN=196447486&site=ehost-live header: @attributes: shortDbName: hlh uiTerm: 196447486 longDbName: Humanities International Complete uiTag: AN controlInfo: bkinfo: jinfo: jid: 00070882 BPL jtl: British Journal for the Philosophy of Science issn: 00070882 maglogo: N pubinfo: dt: Sep2026 vid: 77 iid: 3 pid: 415 pub: University of Chicago Press artinfo: ui: 196447486 10.1086/727002 ppf: 621 ppct: 22 formats: tig: atl: A Hierarchy of Spacetime Symmetries: Holes to Heraclitus. aug: au: Manchak, JB Barrett, Thomas affil: Department of Logic and Philosophy of Science. University of California, Irvine. Irvine, CA, USA. Department of Philosophy. University of California, Santa Barbara. Santa Barbara, CA, USA. su: Space-time symmetries General relativity (Physics) Hausdorff spaces Symmetry sug: subj: Space-time symmetries General relativity (Physics) Hausdorff spaces Symmetry ab: We present a hierarchy of symmetry conditions within the context of general relativity. The weakest condition captures a sense in which spacetime is free of symmetry 'holes' of a certain type. All standard models of general relativity satisfy the condition but we show that violations can occur if the Hausdorff assumption is dropped. On the other extreme, the strongest condition of the hierarchy is satisfied whenever a model is completely devoid of symmetries. In these 'Heraclitus' spacetimes, no pair of distinct points can be mapped (even locally) into one another. We prove that such spacetimes exist. We also show a sense in which Heraclitus spacetimes are completely determined by their local properties. We close with a brief comment on the prospect of using the symmetries of a spacetime as a guide to how much 'structure' it possesses. pubtype: Academic Journal doctype: Article src: R language: English refInfo: copyright: @attributes: flag: Y dt: @attributes: year: 2026 holdings: @attributes: islocal: N |
|---|