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A classic problem in general relativity, long studied by both physicists and philosophers of physics, concerns whether the geodesic principle may be derived from other principles of the theory, or must be posited independently. In a recent paper [Geroch & Weatherall, The Motion of Small Bodies in Space-Time, Comm. Math. Phys. (forthcoming)], Bob Geroch and I have introduced a new approach to this problem, based on a notion we call tracking. In the present paper, I situate the main results of that paper with respect to two other, related approaches, and then make some preliminary remarks on the interpretational significance of the new approach. My main suggestion is that tracking provides the resources for eliminating point particles---a problematic notion in general relativity---from the geodesic principle altogether.
During the First World War, the status of energy conservation in general relativity was one of the most hotly debated questions surrounding Einsteins new theory of gravitation. His approach to this aspect of general relativity differed sharply from a
In this note the AKSZ construction is applied to the BFV description of the reduced phase space of the Einstein-Hilbert and of the Palatini--Cartan theories in every space-time dimension greater than two. In the former case one obtains a BV theory fo
We provide a novel, concise and self-contained evaluation of true- and false vacuum decay rates in general relativity. We insist on general covariance and choose observable boundary conditions, which yields the well known false-vacuum decay rate and
Noncommutative geometries generalize standard smooth geometries, parametrizing the noncommutativity of dimensions with a fundamental quantity with the dimensions of area. The question arises then of whether the concept of a region smaller than the sc
An explicit, geometric description of the first-class constraints and their Poisson brackets for gravity in the Palatini-Cartan formalism (in space-time dimension greater than three) is given. The corresponding Batalin- Fradkin-Vilkovisky (BFV) formulation is also developed.