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Concepts of Time in Classical Physics

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Time, Temporality, Now

Abstract

My aim in this review is to describe the three main concepts of time which have been, and still are used in physics, viz. the time concepts of Newtonian physics, of Einstein’s special theory of relativity, and of his general theory of spacetime and gravitation. In physics, the concept of time serves to describe, qualitatively and quantitatively, natural processes such as motions of bodies, propagation of waves and fields, and causal dependences between events. It is closely, indeed inseparably related to notions of space, and therefore the following account concerns spacetime, with special emphasis on the role of time as a substructure of the more encompassing and, in (not only) my view, more fundamental spacetime structure.

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© 1997 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

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Ehlers, J. (1997). Concepts of Time in Classical Physics. In: Atmanspacher, H., Ruhnau, E. (eds) Time, Temporality, Now. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-60707-3_14

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-60707-3_14

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-642-64518-1

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-642-60707-3

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