Topic: Aspects of Time in Physics
Speaker: Don Page, University of Alberta
Time: 14:30, May 9, 2019
Venue: Physics Building 310
Abstract:
Time is the most common noun in the English language, according to the Oxford English Corpus. It is one of the most familiar concepts that we have, and yet it is also one of the most mysterious. Humans have long recognized regularities in nature that have to do with time, such as the fact that the sun appears to move across the sky in a similar pattern from day to day, modulated by seasonal variations. In this lecture I shall discuss time in Newtonian classical mechanics, in special relativity, in general relativity, in quantum mechanics, in quantum gravity, ending with the question of whether or not time is fundamental.