Causality Definition and 188 Threads

  1. MTd2

    Information Causality: A New Physical Principle by M. Pawlowski et al.

    http://arxiv.org/abs/0905.2292 A new physical principle: Information Causality Authors: M. Pawlowski, T. Paterek, D. Kaszlikowski, V. Scarani, A. Winter, M. Zukowski (Submitted on 14 May 2009) Abstract: Quantum physics exhibits many remarkable features. For example, it gives...
  2. C

    Good reference book to learn all aspects of causality violation

    Hello everyone. I was wondering if anyone knew any good books of learning the aspects of causality violation in general relativity. I know about Hawking book but that's all. I was wondering if anyone had any references to authors in this area at any level from introductory books that are self...
  3. C

    Is Our Perception of Causality Limited by Time and Perception?

    Do you agree with this? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axiom_of_Causality "The Axiom of Causality is the proposition that everything in the universe has a cause and is thus an effect of that cause. This means that if a given event occurs, then this is the result of a previous, related event...
  4. MTd2

    Preserving causality in the most general way.

    I was trying to think in general means to localy preserve causality. By "means", it means to include (or not) varying speed of light and faster than light sign propagation. By varying speed of light, it means that light speed can localy depend on the most generical parameters you can get. Don't...
  5. C

    Help with Topic on Causality and Speical relativity

    Hi all, this is part of my assignment where I have to write an essay of a range of 6000-8000 words. Here goes : Consider the concept of causality. Could a killer use the principle of special relativity to argue that, in a certain reference frame, his/her victim died before the killer fired...
  6. S

    Causality Question: Understanding Inputs Before t1

    This is a question i asked my tutor via email... kind of in a hurry to get it answered so i can fully understand causality for an assignment due on monday.i'm having trouble understanding the causality of the attached tutorial question... if there is an input 'x(t)', for any 't<0' is this input...
  7. A

    Quantum Physics, Causality, and Logic

    Logic and causality? Hi, what implications does quantum physics have on the realm of causality? For instance, due to the wave-particle duality, is it reasonable to say that the universe can be explained through causality? How does this change the concept of 'logic'? Intuitively, we believe...
  8. fluidistic

    Causality Question: Is It Violated in This Scenario?

    I didn't know where to ask this question, so excuse me if I posted it in the wrong place. Recently I've been listening to a video in which a physicist asked a question to the public (in a high school I believe). I've had my own idea about the answer of the question, but the physicist (Étienne...
  9. A

    Causality Condition(Continuous time LTI systems)

    Can anybody prove or give a bit detail about the causality condition i.e h(t) = 0, t<0 for continuous-time LTI system. And based on this how a continuous time LTI system is causal if, x(t) = 0, t<0.
  10. V

    Light Speed Travel and Causality

    This is my first post, so if I am in any way out of line for the the norm on this site please forgive and instruct me. That said, I found this site while trying to comprehend a physics issue I just cannot seem to get my head around. That would be the claim that faster than light travel woudl...
  11. N

    Exploring the Possibility of Time Travel: Understanding Violations of Causality

    Hello I was just wondering how, if a wormhole were possible such that one could travel from point A to point B instantly, how this would violate causality. I have heard that it would, but I don't see how that would work.
  12. D

    Linearity, Time Invariance, Causality, ETC.

    Homework Statement Is the following input/output (x is input, y is output) system linear, time invariant, causal, and memoryless? Answer yes or no for each one.Homework Equations y(t)=2x(t)+3The Attempt at a Solution My instinct tells me it's linear, but for some reason I have trouble showing...
  13. F

    Klein-Gordon Causality calculation

    [SOLVED] Klein-Gordon Causality calculation Homework Statement In Peskin and Schroeder on page 27 it is stated that when we compute the Klien-Gordon propagator in terms of creation and annihilation operators the only term that survived the expansion is...
  14. Z

    Speed of Light and the Causality Problem

    Supposedly nothing can travel faster than the speed of light because this would violate causality and produce paradoxes. Someone on Planet Alpha will travel to Planet Beta at ten times the speed of light, so that to someone watching from planet Gamma it will LOOK like the person was on Beta...
  15. Hans de Vries

    Deriving the Dirac propagator 'purely' from causality

    I figured out this one, just thought it was quite nice... We start with the only requirement that the Green's function of the propagator is causal in the sense that it propagates stricktly forward in time, so that the Green's function is zero at t<0. Using the Heaviside step function we can...
  16. G

    Relativistic quantum mechanics and causality

    I was told in class that both the Dirac equation and the Klein-Gordon equation violate causality, even though they're relativistic invariants, and that this wasn't surprising because the 2 postulates of special relativity don't imply causality. Is this true?
  17. A

    Are there any theories about why causality appears?

    I have a question, but I am not sure how to express it. I have been thinking about the idea of the universe as a four-dimensional object, with time as just another dimension. I have also been thinking about David Deutsch's idea of the universe as a sequence of quantized slices or slides...
  18. U

    Is Time-Reversed Causality Crucial in Cramer's Transactional Interpretation?

    From the wikipedia entry: "Suppose a particle (such as a photon) emitted from a source could interact with one of two detectors. According to TIQM, the source emits a usual (retarded) wave forward in time, the "offer wave", and when this wave reaches the detectors, each one replies with an...
  19. S

    Cramer's Backward Causality Experiment

    Anyone read about this? http://cosmiclog.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2007/07/17/274531.aspx I'm not sure I agree with that part. I'd say that the effect in signal B would at best show up simultaneously as Cramer tampers with signal A. Creating that longer circuitous route for signal A could...
  20. D

    What happens with causality at the Planck scale? Can effects precede causes?

    What happens with causality at the Planck scale? Can effects "precede" causes? I would like to know what happens with causality at the Planck scale, explained in "educated layman" terms, if that's possible... :) Might effects "precede" causes in time? Do we have to redefine causality at the...
  21. N

    What caused the sea to inundate Beijing within the past 80,000 years?

    After reading several papers and seeing gore's movie on GW I'm still searching for solid scientific causal evidence (versus correlations or circumstancial) that anthropogenic greenhouse gases are the cause of global warming in the post-industrial age. I accept we are in a warm epoch...
  22. D

    Understanding Violation of Causality: Explained by Reference Frames

    I was having an argument with some of my friends last night and I needed to explain why faster than light travel or infomation traveling faster than c violates causality. Unfortunately I studied this a long time ago and don't quite remember. Could anyone give me a brief explanation why? I...
  23. P

    Causality in the subjective world

    I was thinking that there are all these laws of nature that describe physical systems, and our senses receive input from these systems. However, once the input has been delivered, it dissappears into the black hole of our consciousness, where it is manipulated by some unknown principle. Once...
  24. N

    What is the meaning of the quantity c in scalar quantum field theory?

    I know that I have been asking that question before and that people are probably tired of it :redface:. I have done multiloop QFT calculations but when I get back to the fundamentals, something is really bugging me. There are several issues but let m start with a question that would...
  25. M

    Philosophy of Fate, Causality, Consequences, Choice, Free Will and Probability

    I have these ideas about these things and I would like your opinion. You may not agree, but it is what I think. First, I would like to say that Fate/Destiny and Causality are linked. To me, fate predestines things and people, which is why people or outside infulences of a person control...
  26. B

    Why is the Lorenz gauge chosen for causality in EM potentials?

    Choosing the Lorenz gauge implies that sources of the EM potentials at a given point are the charge density (for scalar potential) and current density (for vector potential) that cross a collecting sphere converging at the speed of light toward that point. It is often said that the retarded...
  27. R

    Solving Violations of Causality with U > c

    I'm having trouble working this problem. I don't know where to begin. Here's the problem: Let P and Q be any events, P causing Q via propagation of some signal. Let the speed of the signal, call it U, be greater than the speed of light c. In S, the time seperationg is given by delta_t and...
  28. N

    Question about causality in CDT

    Causal Dynamic Triangulation starts out with the premise that causality is preserved, even elemental to the theory, but I have not yet understood what makes CDT causal, aside from the title. Where do I look for the cause and effect sequence in CDT? Thanks, nc
  29. N

    Exploring von Neumann's View of Quantum Measurement

    I have a question about quantum entanglement experiments, such as the two-photon "delayed choice" experiment performed by Aspect et al. http://prola.aps.org/abstract/PRL/v49/i25/p1804_1 . Can anyone estimate how much time elapses between the arrival of a single photon at the detector, and the...
  30. S

    A proposed definition of causality

    On another message board, I have proposed a definition of causality. No one there has been able to give me significant feedback on it. I think that it is appropriate to the QM thread because the parts that are applicable to general physics are pretty much beyond dispute; it is the parts that...
  31. I

    Causality & Hyperspace: FTL Communication Paradoxes

    As far as I understand, FTL communication (or instantaneous communication) is impossible because one cannot define what "instantaneous" means, so you run into problems. What if there were some kind of sub-/hyperspace with an absolutlely defined time and instantaneous messaging? Do the paradoxes...
  32. P

    The Causality Problem and Tunneling: An Overview

    the causality problem and tunneling?
  33. I

    Does Quantum Entanglement Violate Causality?

    Hi everyone, I'm new here and i have to say this place is awesome! I will definatly be poking around here :biggrin: something that has bugged me ever since i thought about it. Does quantum entanglment (when used to send a signal) violate causality?
  34. H

    Do tachyons exist or not?if so causality will be failed

    do tachyons exist or not?if so causality will be failed! is there any particle that can travel faster than photon and still preserve the einstein's postulates? if they exist how can we explain the space like separated events that voilate the causality.
  35. B

    Bell's experiment and causality

    why does Bell's experiment damage causality or cause such problems regarding faster than light information via the instantaneous and corollary collapse of the wave function? photons do not experience time, to them the spin measurement and the emission occur simultaneously...
  36. S

    FTL Signals and the Paradox of Causality

    This is a pretty basic concept of relativity that used to make sense to me but I have since become a little unclear on the issue. The question is how can one violate the principle of causality simply by broadcasting information that travels faster-than-light?
  37. heusdens

    Causality, the law of cause and effect

    Causality Causality, the law of cause and effect, is the most general law used to describe the (physical) reality. The common conviction was that causality holds everywhere, at all time and in all cases. Since modern physcics and quantum mecahnics, this concept of reality has been altered...
  38. M

    Cause-and-Effect. Is Causality necessarily true?

    This issue was brought up in the thread, "I think therefore I am", by Manuel_Silvio; and I wanted to get some answers to the question: Is Causality necessarily true? Here is an example that Manuel used, and I think it sheds some serious light on the matter: Suppose I flip a coin, and get...
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