We investigate temporal and causal threads in the fabric of contemporary physical theories with an emphasis on empirical and operationalistic aspects. Building on the axiomatization of general relativity proposed by J. Ehlers, F. Pirani and A. Schild and the global space-time structure elaborated by R. Penrose, S.W. Hawking, B. Carter and others, we argue that the current way of doing relativistic physics presupposes treating time and causality as primitive concepts, neither of them being `more primitive' than the other. The decision regarding which concepts to assume as primitive and which statements to regard as axioms depends on the choice of the angle at which we contemplate the whole. This standard approach is based on the presupposition that the concept of a point-like particle is a viable approximation. However, this assumption is not supported by a realistic approach to doing physics and, in particular, by quantum theory. We remove this assumption by analysing the recent works by M. Eckstein and T. Miller. They consider the space $P(M)$ of probability measures on space-time $M$ such that, for an element $μ\in P(M)$, the number $μ(K)$ specifies the probability of the occurrence of some event associated with the space-time region $K$ and the measure $μ$. In this way, $M$ is not to be regarded as a collection of space-time events, but rather as a support for corresponding probability measures. As shown by Eckstein and Miller, the space $P(M)$ inherits the causal order from the underlying space-time and facilitates a rigorous notion of a `causal evolution of probability measures'. We look at the deductive chains creating temporal and causal structures analysed in these works, in order to highlight their operational (or quasi-operational) aspect. This is impossible without taking into account the relative frequencies and correlations observed in relevant experiments.
Relativistic Dispersion Spectra across Lorentz boosted frames: Spurious modes and the enigma of causality
University of Edinburgh（爱丁堡大学）；National Institute of Science Education and Research（国家科学教育与研究所）；Indian Institute of Technology, Gandhinagar（甘地纳加尔印度理工学院）；West University of Timisoara（蒂米什瓦拉西大学）
Nonlinear Causality and Strong Hyperbolicity of Einstein-Israel-Stewart Theories of Transient Relativistic Fluid Dynamics
Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Florence（佛罗伦萨大学物理与天文学系）；Department of Mathematics, Vanderbilt University（范德堡大学数学系）；Escola de Ciências e Tecnologia, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Norte（北里奥格兰德联邦大学科学与技术学院）
