Conference

Relationalism is the strict disentanglement of physical law from the definition of physical object. This can be formalized in the shape dynamcis postulate that the objective evolution of the universe is described by an "equation of state of a curve in relational configuration space." The application of this postulate to General Relativity implies that gravity is described by an equation of state of a curve on conformal superspace. It turns out that the naive quantization of these equations of state introduces an undesired preferred time parametrization. However, it turns out that one can still describe the quantum evolution of the system as an equation of state of the Bohmian trajectory which remains manifestly parametrization independent. These quantum systems generically develop quasi-isolated bound states (atoms) that can be used as reference systems. It turns out that the system as a whole expands if described in units defined by these atoms. This produces phenomenological effects that are usually ascribed to the presence of a cosmological constant. This "effective cosmological constant" is however unaffected by vacuum energy. I pesent the formal argument for this statement and show this explicitly by remormalizing a scalar field coupled to shape dynamics.

Shape Dynamics(SD) can be derived from principles that differ in significant respects from Einstein's derivation of GR. It requires a spatially closed universe and allows a smaller set of solutions than GR does for this case. There are indications that its solution space can be fully characterized and endowed with a measure. These architectonic features suggest that SD can explain the arrows of time as direct consequences of the law of the universe. They do not require special initial conditions. I will discuss these and other major issues on which SD may cast light. I will also discuss the problems that face SD.