Space and Time Beyond Common Sense

From Ancient Metaphysics to Modern Cosmology

von Quim Aiguafreda

212 Seiten, Taschenbuch

Kurzbeschreibung des Verlags

What are space and time-and why do they become harder to understand the more carefully we think about them?

Space and Time Beyond Common Sense traces the changing ideas of space and time from classical philosophy to modern physics.

Are space and time real things, or only relations between objects and events? Newton made them absolute. Leibniz argued that such invisible metaphysical furniture was unnecessary. Kant transformed the debate by asking whether space and time belong to reality itself or to the way we experience it. Then Einstein removed universal simultaneity, joined space and time into spacetime, and made geometry part of the machinery of gravity.

From there, the questions become stranger. Is there really a universal present? Do past and future exist just as fully as the present? Why does time seem to flow in one direction? What happens to time near a black hole? What does it mean for the universe itself to expand? And could spacetime turn out not to be fundamental at all?

Drawing on philosophy, relativity, thermodynamics, cosmology, and quantum gravity, the book explores the arguments and discoveries that overturned ordinary ideas about where and when anything exists.

Space is where things are. Time is when things happen. Simple enough. Unfortunately, both philosophy and physics kept asking follow-up questions.

• ISBN: 9798192973547
• Sprache: Englisch
• Erscheinungsdatum: 16.08.2026
• Größe: 229 x 152 mm
• Verlag: Amazon Digital Services LLC - Kdp