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  1. Time travel and time machines.Chris Smeenk & Christian Wuthrich - 2011 - In Craig Callender (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Time. Oxford University Press. pp. 577-630.
    This paper is an enquiry into the logical, metaphysical, and physical possibility of time travel understood in the sense of the existence of closed worldlines that can be traced out by physical objects. We argue that none of the purported paradoxes rule out time travel either on grounds of logic or metaphysics. More relevantly, modern spacetime theories such as general relativity seem to permit models that feature closed worldlines. We discuss, in the context of Gödel's infamous argument for the ideality (...)
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  2. Philosophy Beyond Spacetime: Introduction.Christian Wüthrich, Baptiste Le Bihan & Nick Huggett - 2021 - In Christian Wüthrich, Baptiste Le Bihan & Nick Huggett (eds.), Philosophy Beyond Spacetime: Implications From Quantum Gravity. Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp. 1-15.
    The present volume collects essays on the philosophical foundations of quantum theories of gravity, such as loop quantum gravity and string theory. Central for philosophical concerns is quantum gravity's suggestion that space and time, or spacetime, may not exist fundamentally, but instead be a derivative entity emerging from non-spatiotemporal degrees of freedom. In the spirit of naturalised metaphysics, contributions to this volume consider the philosophical implications of this suggestion. In turn, philosophical methods and insights are brought to bear on the (...)
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  3. Do the Laws of Physics Forbid the Operation of Time Machines?John Earman, Chris Smeenk & Christian Wüthrich - 2009 - Synthese 169 (1):91 - 124.
    We address the question of whether it is possible to operate a time machine by manipulating matter and energy so as to manufacture closed timelike curves. This question has received a great deal of attention in the physics literature, with attempts to prove no- go theorems based on classical general relativity and various hybrid theories serving as steps along the way towards quantum gravity. Despite the effort put into these no-go theorems, there is no widely accepted definition of a time (...)
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  4. (4 other versions)Out of Nowhere: the 'emergence' of spacetime in string theory.Nick Huggett & Christian Wüthrich - manuscript
    This is a chapter of the planned monograph "Out of Nowhere: The Emergence of Spacetime in Quantum Theories of Gravity", co-authored by Nick Huggett and Christian Wüthrich and under contract with Oxford University Press. This chapter analyses the nature and derivation of spacetime topology and geometry according to string theory.
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  5. Determinism and General Relativity.Chris Smeenk & Christian Wüthrich - 2021 - Philosophy of Science 88 (4):638-664.
    We investigate the fate of determinism in general relativity, comparing the philosopher’s account with the physicist’s well-posed initial value formulations. The fate of determinism is interwoven with the question of what it is for a spacetime to be ‘physically reasonable’. A central concern is the status of global hyperbolicity, a putatively necessary condition for determinism in GR. While global hyperbolicity may fail to be true of all physically reasonable models, we analyze whether global hyperbolicity should be imposed by fiat; established (...)
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