2015/06/10 by Oliver Pooley, Pooley, Oliver · 4 citations
Medicine · Physics and Astronomy · #Biofield Effects and Biophysics #Cosmology and Gravitation Theories #FOS: Physical sciences #General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology (gr-qc) #History and Philosophy of Physics (physics.hist-ph) #Relativity and Gravitational Theory
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.1506.03512
openalex publication_date 2015/06/10 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
Diffeomorphism invariance is sometimes taken to be a criterion of background\nindependence. This claim is commonly accompanied by a second, that the genuine\nphysical magnitudes (the "observables") of background-independent theories and\nthose of background-dependent (non-diffeomorphism-invariant) theories are\nessentially different in nature. I argue against both claims.\nBackground-dependent theories can be formulated in a diffeomorphism-invariant\nmanner. This suggests that the nature of the physical magnitudes of relevantly\nanalogous theories (one background free, the other background dependent) is\nessentially the same. The temptation to think otherwise stems from a\nmisunderstanding of the meaning of spacetime coordinates in\nbackground-dependent theories.\n