Theories in physics usually do not address ``the present''or ``the now''. However, they usually have a precise notion of an ``instant'' (or state). I review how this notion appears in relational point mechanics and how it suffices to determine durations - a fact that is often ignored in modern presentations of analytical dynamics. An analogous discussion is attempted for General Relativity. Finally I critically remark on the difference between relationalism in point mechanics and field theory and the problematic foundational dependencies between fields and spacetime.
CITATION STYLE
Giulini, D. (2015). Instants in Physics: Point Mechanics and General Relativity (pp. 109–123). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-10446-1_5
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