Absolute space and time is a concept in
physics
Physics is the natural science that studies matter, its fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. "Physical science is that department of knowledge which r ...
and
philosophy
Philosophy (from , ) is the systematized study of general and fundamental questions, such as those about existence, reason, knowledge, values, mind, and language. Such questions are often posed as problems to be studied or resolved. Some ...
about the properties of the universe. In physics, absolute space and time may be a
preferred frame
In theoretical physics, a preferred frame or privileged frame is usually a special hypothetical frame of reference in which the laws of physics might appear to be identifiably different (simpler) from those in other frames.
In theories that apply ...
.
Before Newton
A version of the concept of absolute space (in the sense of a
preferred frame
In theoretical physics, a preferred frame or privileged frame is usually a special hypothetical frame of reference in which the laws of physics might appear to be identifiably different (simpler) from those in other frames.
In theories that apply ...
) can be seen in
Aristotelian physics
Aristotelian physics is the form of natural science described in the works of the Greek philosopher Aristotle (384–322 BC). In his work ''Physics'', Aristotle intended to establish general principles of change that govern all natural bodies, b ...
.
Robert S. Westman
''The Copernican Question: Prognostication, Skepticism, and Celestial Order'' is a 704-page book written by Robert S. Westman and published by University of California Press (Berkeley, Los Angeles, London) in 2011 and in 2020 (paperback). The book ...
writes that a "whiff" of absolute space can be observed in
Copernicus
Nicolaus Copernicus (; pl, Mikołaj Kopernik; gml, Niklas Koppernigk, german: Nikolaus Kopernikus; 19 February 1473 – 24 May 1543) was a Renaissance polymath, active as a mathematician, astronomer, and Catholic canon, who formulated ...
's ''
De revolutionibus orbium coelestium
''De revolutionibus orbium coelestium'' (English translation: ''On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres'') is the seminal work on the heliocentric theory of the astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus (1473–1543) of the Polish Renaissance. The book, ...
'', where Copernicus uses the concept of an immobile sphere of stars.
Newton
Originally introduced by
Sir Isaac Newton
Sir Isaac Newton (25 December 1642 – 20 March 1726/27) was an English mathematician, physicist, astronomer, alchemist, theologian, and author (described in his time as a "natural philosopher"), widely recognised as one of the great ...
in ''
Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica
(English: ''Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy'') often referred to as simply the (), is a book by Isaac Newton that expounds Newton's laws of motion and his law of universal gravitation. The ''Principia'' is written in Latin and ...
'', the concepts of absolute time and space provided a theoretical foundation that facilitated
Newtonian mechanics
Newton's laws of motion are three basic laws of classical mechanics that describe the relationship between the motion of an object and the forces acting on it. These laws can be paraphrased as follows:
# A body remains at rest, or in motion ...
. According to Newton, absolute time and space respectively are independent aspects of objective reality:
[In ''Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica'' See the ''Principia'' on line a]
Andrew Motte Translation
/ref>
Absolute, true and mathematical time, of itself, and from its own nature flows equably without regard to anything external, and by another name is called duration: relative, apparent and common time, is some sensible and external (whether accurate or unequable) measure of duration by the means of motion, which is commonly used instead of true time ...
According to Newton, absolute time exists independently of any perceiver and progresses at a consistent pace throughout the universe. Unlike relative time, Newton believed absolute time was imperceptible and could only be understood mathematically. According to Newton, humans are only capable of perceiving relative time, which is a measurement of perceivable objects in motion (like the Moon or Sun). From these movements, we infer the passage of time.
These notions imply that absolute space and time do not depend upon physical events, but are a backdrop or stage setting within which physical phenomena occur. Thus, every object has an absolute state of motion relative to absolute space, so that an object must be either in a state of absolute rest
Rest or REST may refer to:
Relief from activity
* Sleep
** Bed rest
* Kneeling
* Lying (position)
* Sitting
* Squatting position
Structural support
* Structural support
** Rest (cue sports)
** Armrest
** Headrest
** Footrest
Arts and entert ...
, or moving at some absolute speed
In everyday use and in kinematics, the speed (commonly referred to as ''v'') of an object is the magnitude of the change of its position over time or the magnitude of the change of its position per unit of time; it is thus a scalar quanti ...
. To support his views, Newton provided some empirical examples: according to Newton, a solitary rotating sphere can be inferred to rotate about its axis relative to absolute space by observing the bulging of its equator, and a solitary pair of spheres tied by a rope can be inferred to be in absolute rotation about their center of gravity (barycenter
In astronomy, the barycenter (or barycentre; ) is the center of mass of two or more bodies that orbit one another and is the point about which the bodies orbit. A barycenter is a dynamical point, not a physical object. It is an important conc ...
) by observing the tension in the rope.
Differing views
Historically, there have been differing views on the concept of absolute space and time. Gottfried Leibniz
Gottfried Wilhelm (von) Leibniz . ( – 14 November 1716) was a German polymath active as a mathematician, philosopher, scientist and diplomat. He is one of the most prominent figures in both the history of philosophy and the history of mathem ...
was of the opinion that space made no sense except as the relative location of bodies, and time made no sense except as the relative movement of bodies. George Berkeley
George Berkeley (; 12 March 168514 January 1753) – known as Bishop Berkeley (Bishop of Cloyne of the Anglican Church of Ireland) – was an Anglo-Irish philosopher whose primary achievement was the advancement of a theory he called "immate ...
suggested that, lacking any point of reference, a sphere in an otherwise empty universe could not be conceived to rotate, and a pair of spheres could be conceived to rotate relative to one another, but not to rotate about their center of gravity, an example later raised by Albert Einstein
Albert Einstein ( ; ; 14 March 1879 – 18 April 1955) was a German-born theoretical physicist, widely acknowledged to be one of the greatest and most influential physicists of all time. Einstein is best known for developing the theory ...
in his development of general relativity.
A more recent form of these objections was made by Ernst Mach
Ernst Waldfried Josef Wenzel Mach ( , ; 18 February 1838 – 19 February 1916) was a Moravian-born Austrian physicist and philosopher, who contributed to the physics of shock waves. The ratio of one's speed to that of sound is named the Mach ...
. Mach's principle
In theoretical physics, particularly in discussions of gravitation theories, Mach's principle (or Mach's conjecture) is the name given by Einstein to an imprecise hypothesis often credited to the physicist and philosopher Ernst Mach. The hypothe ...
proposes that mechanics is entirely about relative motion of bodies and, in particular, mass
Mass is an intrinsic property of a body. It was traditionally believed to be related to the quantity of matter in a physical body, until the discovery of the atom and particle physics. It was found that different atoms and different elementar ...
is an expression of such relative motion. So, for example, a single particle in a universe with no other bodies would have zero mass. According to Mach, Newton's examples simply illustrate relative rotation of spheres and the bulk of the universe.[Ernst Mach; as quoted by ]
When, accordingly, we say that a body preserves unchanged its direction and velocity ''in space'', our assertion is nothing more or less than an abbreviated reference to ''the entire universe''.
—Ernst Mach; as quoted by Ciufolini and Wheeler
Wheeler may refer to:
Places United States
* Wheeler, Alabama, an unincorporated community
* Wheeler, Arkansas, an unincorporated community
* Wheeler, California, an unincorporated community
* Wheeler, Illinois, a village
* Wheeler, Indiana, a ...
: ''Gravitation and Inertia'', p. 387
These views opposing absolute space and time may be seen from a modern stance as an attempt to introduce operational definition
An operational definition specifies concrete, replicable procedures designed to represent a construct. In the words of American psychologist S.S. Stevens (1935), "An operation is the performance which we execute in order to make known a concept." F ...
s for space and time, a perspective made explicit in the special theory of relativity.
Even within the context of Newtonian mechanics, the modern view is that absolute space is unnecessary. Instead, the notion of inertial frame of reference
In classical physics and special relativity, an inertial frame of reference (also called inertial reference frame, inertial frame, inertial space, or Galilean reference frame) is a frame of reference that is not undergoing any acceleration. ...
has taken precedence, that is, a preferred ''set'' of frames of reference that move uniformly with respect to one another. The laws of physics transform from one inertial frame to another according to Galilean relativity
Galilean invariance or Galilean relativity states that the laws of motion are the same in all inertial frames of reference. Galileo Galilei first described this principle in 1632 in his ''Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems'' using th ...
, leading to the following objections to absolute space, as outlined by Milutin Blagojević:
* The existence of absolute space contradicts the internal logic of classical mechanics since, according to Galilean principle of relativity, none of the inertial frames can be singled out.
* Absolute space does not explain inertial forces since they are related to acceleration with respect to any one of the inertial frames.
* Absolute space acts on physical objects by inducing their resistance to acceleration but it cannot be acted upon.
Newton himself recognized the role of inertial frames.[Isaac Newton: ''Principia'', Corollary V, p. 88 in Andrew Motte translation. See the ''Principia'' on line a]
Andrew Motte Translation
/ref>
The motions of bodies included in a given space are the same among themselves, whether that space is at rest or moves uniformly forward in a straight line.
As a practical matter, inertial frames often are taken as frames moving uniformly with respect to the fixed stars
In astronomy, fixed stars ( la, stellae fixae) is a term to name the full set of glowing points, astronomical objects actually and mainly stars, that appear not to move relative to one another against the darkness of the night sky in the backgro ...
. See Inertial frame of reference
In classical physics and special relativity, an inertial frame of reference (also called inertial reference frame, inertial frame, inertial space, or Galilean reference frame) is a frame of reference that is not undergoing any acceleration. ...
for more discussion on this.
Mathematical definitions
''Space'', as understood in Newtonian mechanics
Newton's laws of motion are three basic laws of classical mechanics that describe the relationship between the motion of an object and the forces acting on it. These laws can be paraphrased as follows:
# A body remains at rest, or in motion ...
, is three-dimensional
Three-dimensional space (also: 3D space, 3-space or, rarely, tri-dimensional space) is a geometric setting in which three values (called ''parameters'') are required to determine the position of an element (i.e., point). This is the informal ...
and Euclidean, with a fixed orientation
Orientation may refer to:
Positioning in physical space
* Map orientation, the relationship between directions on a map and compass directions
* Orientation (housing), the position of a building with respect to the sun, a concept in building de ...
. It is denoted ''E''3. If some point ''O'' in ''E''3 is fixed and defined as an origin
Origin(s) or The Origin may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media
Comics and manga
* Origin (comics), ''Origin'' (comics), a Wolverine comic book mini-series published by Marvel Comics in 2002
* The Origin (Buffy comic), ''The Origin'' (Bu ...
, the ''position'' of any point ''P'' in ''E''3 is uniquely determined by its radius vector (the origin of this vector coincides with the point ''O'' and its end coincides with the point ''P''). The three-dimensional linear vector space ''R''3 is a set
Set, The Set, SET or SETS may refer to:
Science, technology, and mathematics Mathematics
*Set (mathematics), a collection of elements
*Category of sets, the category whose objects and morphisms are sets and total functions, respectively
Electro ...
of all radius vectors. The space ''R''3 is endowed with a scalar product
In mathematics, the dot product or scalar productThe term ''scalar product'' means literally "product with a scalar as a result". It is also used sometimes for other symmetric bilinear forms, for example in a pseudo-Euclidean space. is an algebra ...
⟨ , ⟩.
''Time'' is a scalar
Scalar may refer to:
*Scalar (mathematics), an element of a field, which is used to define a vector space, usually the field of real numbers
* Scalar (physics), a physical quantity that can be described by a single element of a number field such ...
which is the same in all space ''E''3 and is denoted as ''t''. The ordered set
In mathematics, especially order theory, a partially ordered set (also poset) formalizes and generalizes the intuitive concept of an ordering, sequencing, or arrangement of the elements of a set. A poset consists of a set together with a binary r ...
is called a time axis.
''Motion'' (also ''path'' or ''trajectory
A trajectory or flight path is the path that an object with mass in motion follows through space as a function of time. In classical mechanics, a trajectory is defined by Hamiltonian mechanics via canonical coordinates; hence, a complete traj ...
'') is a function
Function or functionality may refer to:
Computing
* Function key, a type of key on computer keyboards
* Function model, a structured representation of processes in a system
* Function object or functor or functionoid, a concept of object-oriente ...
''r'' : Δ → ''R''3 that maps
A map is a symbolic depiction emphasizing relationships between elements of some space, such as objects, regions, or themes.
Many maps are static, fixed to paper or some other durable medium, while others are dynamic or interactive. Although ...
a point in the interval Δ from the time axis to a position
Position often refers to:
* Position (geometry), the spatial location (rather than orientation) of an entity
* Position, a job or occupation
Position may also refer to:
Games and recreation
* Position (poker), location relative to the dealer
* ...
(radius vector) in ''R''3.
The above four concepts are the "well-known" objects mentioned by Isaac Newton
Sir Isaac Newton (25 December 1642 – 20 March 1726/27) was an English mathematician, physicist, astronomer, alchemist, theologian, and author (described in his time as a "natural philosopher"), widely recognised as one of the grea ...
in his Principia:
:''I do not define time, space, place and motion, as being well known to all.''
Special relativity
The concepts of space and time were separate in physical theory prior to the advent of special relativity
In physics, the special theory of relativity, or special relativity for short, is a scientific theory regarding the relationship between space and time. In Albert Einstein's original treatment, the theory is based on two postulates:
# The laws o ...
theory, which connected the two and showed both to be dependent upon the reference frame's motion. In Einstein's theories, the ideas of absolute time and space were superseded by the notion of spacetime
In physics, spacetime is a mathematical model that combines the three dimensions of space and one dimension of time into a single four-dimensional manifold. Spacetime diagrams can be used to visualize relativistic effects, such as why differen ...
in special relativity
In physics, the special theory of relativity, or special relativity for short, is a scientific theory regarding the relationship between space and time. In Albert Einstein's original treatment, the theory is based on two postulates:
# The laws o ...
, and curved spacetime in general relativity
General relativity, also known as the general theory of relativity and Einstein's theory of gravity, is the geometric theory of gravitation published by Albert Einstein in 1915 and is the current description of gravitation in modern physics ...
.
Absolute simultaneity refers to the concurrence of events in time at different locations in space in a manner agreed upon in all frames of reference. The theory of relativity does not have a concept of absolute time because there is a relativity of simultaneity
In physics, the relativity of simultaneity is the concept that ''distant simultaneity'' – whether two spatially separated events occur at the same time – is not absolute, but depends on the observer's reference frame. This possi ...
. An event that is simultaneous with another event in one frame of reference may be in the past or future of that event in a different frame of reference, which negates absolute simultaneity.
Einstein
Quoted below from his later papers, Einstein identified the term aether with "properties of space", a terminology that is not widely used. Einstein stated that in general relativity
General relativity, also known as the general theory of relativity and Einstein's theory of gravity, is the geometric theory of gravitation published by Albert Einstein in 1915 and is the current description of gravitation in modern physics ...
the "aether" is not absolute anymore, as the geodesic
In geometry, a geodesic () is a curve representing in some sense the shortest path ( arc) between two points in a surface, or more generally in a Riemannian manifold. The term also has meaning in any differentiable manifold with a connection. ...
and therefore the structure of spacetime depends on the presence of matter.
General relativity
Special relativity eliminates absolute time (although Gödel and others suspect absolute time may be valid for some forms of general relativity) and general relativity further reduces the physical scope of absolute space and time through the concept of geodesics
In geometry, a geodesic () is a curve representing in some sense the shortest path ( arc) between two points in a surface, or more generally in a Riemannian manifold. The term also has meaning in any differentiable manifold with a connection. ...
. There appears to be absolute space in relation to the distant stars because the local geodesics eventually channel information from these stars, but it is not necessary to invoke absolute space with respect to any system's physics, as its local geodesics are sufficient to describe its spacetime.
See also
References and notes
{{DEFAULTSORT:Absolute Time And Space
Classical mechanics
Theory of relativity
Time in physics
Physical cosmology
Aristotelianism
Philosophy of time
Space and time