Abstract

The assumption that spacetime has the structure of a topological manifold has proven to be so useful in physics that it now underwrites all physical theory. Nonetheless, over the past few decades various non-manifold spacetime topologies have been proposed that, according to their creators at least, are more physical than and therefore preferable to the standard manifold topologies presupposed by relativistic theories. These so-called Zeeman topologies possess certain novel properties that make them especially interesting from a physical and philosophical perspective. This dissertation explores the nature of those properties and discusses their relevance to several problems in the philosophy of space and time