The representation of time from 1700 to the present

Leibniz influenced the contemporary cosmologists Roger Penrose and Lee Smolin, an influence I trace at the beginning of this chapter, which examines debates over the nature of time in recent centuries. I look at the revision of the concept of time occasioned by 19th c. Thermodynamics, and then Boltzmann’s attempt to reconcile it with Newtonian mechanics: is the arrow of time (so referentially compelling) real, or can it be explained away by an analytic discourse? During the 20th century, in a sense classical General Relativity Theory continued the Newtonian tradition of an analytic, geometrical theory of time, and Quantum Mechanics continued the Leibnizian tradition of a referential theory of time elicited from the dynamical object (molecular, atomic, and subatomic particles); and the dialectic, modified, continues into the current century. I argue that the heterogeneity of the discourses and their complementarity are useful for the advance of science; and that the interesting philosophical question is how the two approaches interact.