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Simultaneity as an Invariant Equivalence Relation
This paper deals with the concept of simultaneity in classical and
relativistic physics as construed in terms of group-invariant equivalence
relations. A full examination of Newton, Galilei and Poincar\'e invariant
equivalence relations in is presented, which provides alternative
proofs, additions and occasionally corrections of results in the literature,
including Malament's theorem and some of its variants. It is argued that the
interpretation of simultaneity as an invariant equivalence relation, although
interesting for its own sake, does not cut in the debate concerning the
conventionality of simultaneity in special relativity.Comment: Some corrections, mostly of misprints. Keywords: special relativity,
simultaneity, invariant equivalence relations, Malament's theore
Infinite time decidable equivalence relation theory
We introduce an analog of the theory of Borel equivalence relations in which
we study equivalence relations that are decidable by an infinite time Turing
machine. The Borel reductions are replaced by the more general class of
infinite time computable functions. Many basic aspects of the classical theory
remain intact, with the added bonus that it becomes sensible to study some
special equivalence relations whose complexity is beyond Borel or even
analytic. We also introduce an infinite time generalization of the countable
Borel equivalence relations, a key subclass of the Borel equivalence relations,
and again show that several key properties carry over to the larger class.
Lastly, we collect together several results from the literature regarding Borel
reducibility which apply also to absolutely Delta_1^2 reductions, and hence to
the infinite time computable reductions.Comment: 30 pages, 3 figure
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