Philippine E-Journals

A time portal to higher-derivative inertial laws

Emmanuel T. Rodulfo

 

Abstract:

The role of the observer in physics is reconsidered in connection with our evolving assumptions about the nature of time. Unlike the observer’s optional movement through space, evolution in time is compulsory and strictly governed by causal order. Thus, it is argued that time is intrinsically more fundamental than space. The geometry of space is appreciated as an emergent degrees of freedom which allows moving observers to develop invariant transformation equations. Inertial laws are shown to emerge from the observer’s assumptions about the nature of time and its transformations. We are thus led to explore the next logical extension of the observer’s progressing appreciation of the nature of time by allowing time to depend on higher-derivative kinematical quantities. This leads to inertial laws that may potentially accommodate various nonlinear phenomena such as the yet unresolved celestial anomalies, and possibly provide the needed degrees of freedom for the unification of classical with quantum theory.