Konwersatorium im. Leopolda Infelda

We all learn from basic courses in physics that concepts like time or evolution are something to do with the hyperbolic or parabolic character of our equations. Hyperbolicity in many circumstances may also straightforwardly be traced back to the Lorentzian signature of the metric of the underlying spacetime. In this seminar I intend to provide some evidences–using specific examples of physical interest–demonstrating that, on contrary to intuition, evolutionary methods may also play important role in spaces of Euclidean signature.Interesting questions arise then concerning the appearance of an abundance of time functions in spaces which had been considered to admit none.