Causality in Physics: From Galileo to Einstein, and Beyond

TL;DR

This paper explores the evolving concept of causality in physics, tracing its treatment from classical mechanics to modern theories like relativity and quantum physics, highlighting its shifting role and conceptual challenges.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive historical and conceptual analysis of how causality has been understood and questioned across different physical theories.

Findings

Causality's role diminishes in modern physics theories.

Historical shifts show causality recedes into background.

Causality remains central to everyday understanding despite theoretical changes.

Abstract

Causality is one of the most fundamental -- and yet elusive -- concepts in physics. From its intuitive role in everyday experience to its formal and often implicit role in scientific theories, causality has challenged philosophers and physicists alike. In what follows, we take a brief historical and conceptual journey through classical and modern physics, tracing how causality has been treated, questioned, or protected in successive physical frameworks -- from Galilean mechanics to Newtonian dynamics, from Lagrangian and Hamiltonian formulations to special and general relativity, and finally to quantum mechanics and statistical physics. Our aim is to show how the notion of causality has repeatedly receded into the background of our most successful theories, even when it appears to be central to our everyday understanding of the world.