|
|
|
Wolfgang Rindler: Gödel, Einstein, Mach, and Time
Abstract
Gödel's interest in General Relativity and spacetime was sparked by his
friendship with Einstein during the 1940's and 50's at the Princeton
Institute for Advanced Study. In particular he came to question the concept
of time as "an infinity of layers of 'now' which come into existence
successively". Miraculously, and apparently out of nowhere, he produced a
possible universe within general relativity that possessed irremovable
closed time lines (journeys into one's past), and thus pointed to deep
logical paradoxes. Even if our actual universe is not of this kind, Gödel
held that the mere possibility of such universes should make philosophers
reconsider their views of time. And Gödel's Cosmos had yet another new
feature: it was anti-Machian, in the sense that its local inertial
reference frames rotated against the bulk matter in the universe. In 1949
this probably surprised Einstein less than it would have done in 1913, when
he very respectfully informed the aging and unresponsive Mach that general
relativity was Machian. |
|
|
|