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" "...absolute time would exist in a causal structure for which the concept indeterminate as to time order lends to a unique simultaneity, i.e., for which there is no finite interval of time between the departure and return of a first-signal...
Hans Reichenbach (26 September 1891 – 9 April 1953) was a leading philosopher of science, educator and proponent of logical positivism.
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Some philosophers have believed that a philosophical clarification of space also provided a solution of the problem of time. Kant presented space and time as analogous forms of visualization and treated them in a common chapter in his major epistemological work. Time therefore seems to be much less problematic since it has none of the difficulties resulting from multidimensionality. Time does not have the problem of mirror-image congruence, i.e., the problem of equal and similarly shaped figures that cannot be superimposed, a problem that has played some role in Kant's philosophy. Furthermore, time has no problem analogous to non-Euclidean geometry. In a one-dimensional schema it is impossible to distinguish between straightness and curvature. ...A line may have external curvature but never an internal one, since this possibility exists only for a two-dimensional or higher continuum. Thus time lacks, because of its one-dimensionality, all those problems which have led to philosophical analysis of the problems of space.
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...introduce the auxiliary concept of first-signal...defined as the fastest message carrier between any two points in space. We now send a first-signal from P, calling the event of departure E<sub>1</sub>... The event of its arrival at P' is called E'. Simultaneously with the arrival of this signal, another first signal is sent from P'. The arrival of this signal at P is the event E<sub>2</sub>. ...the time interval between E<sub>1</sub> and E<sub>2</sub> is coordinated to the event E', [E<sub>1</sub> is earlier than E' and E<sub>2</sub> is later than E'] and every event of this time interval except for the endpoints is inderterminate as to the time order relative to E'.