References
Sources & further reading.
This site is a popular treatment, not a textbook — but every claim in it can be traced back to a source, and we’ve tried to be scrupulous in doing so. Primary papers are cited where feasible; secondary literature is included when it’s a more accessible entry point.
[1]1887
On the Relative Motion of the Earth and the Luminiferous Ether
A. A. Michelson & E. W. Morley
American Journal of Science, 34, 333–345
The null result that motivated the overthrow of absolute space. Recast by subsequent experiments with vastly tighter bounds (e.g., Hall 1883; Müller et al. 2003) and now among the most precisely tested null results in physics.
[1]1905
Zur Elektrodynamik bewegter Körper
A. Einstein
Annalen der Physik, 17, 891–921
The special-relativity paper. Establishes the relativity of simultaneity as the keystone of the kinematic picture.
[2]1908 (address); 1909 (published)
Raum und Zeit (Space and Time)
H. Minkowski
Physikalische Zeitschrift, 10, 75–88
The formulation of spacetime as a unified four-dimensional manifold, and the introduction of light-cone structure as the invariant geometric object.
[3]1966
A Rigorous Proof of Determinism Derived from the Special Theory of Relativity
C. W. Rietdijk
Philosophy of Science, 33(4), 341–344
[4]1967
Time and Physical Geometry
H. Putnam
The Journal of Philosophy, 64(8), 240–247
The Andromeda argument in its canonical philosophical form. See also Penrose, The Emperor's New Mind (1989), pp. 303–305 for a popular recounting.
[5]1872
Weitere Studien über das Wärmegleichgewicht unter Gasmolekülen (Further Studies on the Thermal Equilibrium of Gas Molecules)
L. Boltzmann
Sitzungsberichte Akademie der Wissenschaften, Wien, 66, 275–370
The H-theorem and the statistical grounding of the second law.
[6]1928
The Nature of the Physical World
A. S. Eddington
Cambridge University Press
Introduces the phrase 'time's arrow' (Ch. IV, p. 68 ff).
[7]2010
From Eternity to Here: The Quest for the Ultimate Theory of Time
S. Carroll
Dutton
A sustained modern treatment of the past-hypothesis, the low-entropy beginning of the universe, and why it matters for the arrow of time.
[8]1996
Time's Arrow and Archimedes' Point: New Directions for the Physics of Time
H. Price
Oxford University Press
Argues that many puzzles about time arise from smuggled temporal assumptions in our own perspective, and advocates a 'view from nowhen'.
[9]2018
The Order of Time
C. Rovelli
Riverhead
A contemporary, contemplative case that time's familiar features (directedness, presentness, continuity) are thermodynamic and perspectival, not fundamental.
[10]2021 (revised)
Being and Becoming in Modern Physics
S. Savitt
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
An even-handed overview of the block-universe / eternalism vs. presentism vs. growing-block debate.
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/spacetime-bebecome/[11]2019 (revised)
The Experience and Perception of Time
R. Le Poidevin
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/time-experience/[12]March 21, 1955
Letter to the family of Michele Besso
A. Einstein
In The Collected Papers of Albert Einstein; see A. Fölsing, Albert Einstein: A Biography (1997), p. 741.
The source of the celebrated 'stubbornly persistent illusion' passage, written three weeks before Einstein's own death.
[13]1986
Unified Dynamics for Microscopic and Macroscopic Systems
G. C. Ghirardi, A. Rimini & T. Weber
Physical Review D, 34(2), 470–491
The canonical objective-collapse proposal. If something like GRW is correct, wavefunction collapse is a real physical event, which arguably reintroduces a privileged 'now' and is in tension with the block picture.
[14]1957
‘Relative State’ Formulation of Quantum Mechanics
H. Everett III
Reviews of Modern Physics, 29(3), 454–462
The original many-worlds paper. For the modern, decoherence-based defense of Everett that makes it the most eternalism-friendly interpretation on offer, see D. Wallace, The Emergent Multiverse (Oxford, 2012).
[15]1967
Quantum Theory of Gravity. I. The Canonical Theory
B. S. DeWitt
Physical Review, 160(5), 1113–1148
The Wheeler–DeWitt equation, in which time does not appear as an external parameter — a standing invitation to read time as emergent rather than fundamental.
[16]1999
The End of Time: The Next Revolution in Physics
J. Barbour
Oxford University Press
A radical reading of quantum gravity in which time is fully emergent and the universe is a timeless structure of configurations — a position even more block-like than Einstein's, and genuinely strange.
[17]various (revised)
Interpretations of Quantum Mechanics
J. Bub & I. Pitowsky; L. Vaidman; et al.
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
A starting point for the landscape of interpretations and their foundational commitments. For the specific question of how quantum mechanics relates to time and becoming, see also C. Callender, ‘Thermodynamic Asymmetry in Time’ (SEP) and the entries on ‘Collapse Theories’ and ‘Bohmian Mechanics’.
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/qm-manyworlds/Inaccuracies are the maintainers’ responsibility, not the cited authors’. Corrections welcome. Return to the walkthrough.