Background Independence in Classical and Quantum Gravity

Read, James

doi:10.1093/oso/9780192889119.001.0001

Cited by 3 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 112 publications

(338 reference statements)

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“…Modern responses to these objections [e.g. Belot, 2011, Earman, 2006a,b, Pitts, 2006, Pooley, 2010 aim to identify a substantive (as opposed to artificial) notion of general covariance as a property that characterizes general relativity but not, for example, generally covariant formulations of special relativity or Newtonian gravity (for a recent survey, see [Read, 2023b]).…”

Section: Equivalence Covariance Geometry and Dynamicsmentioning

confidence: 99%

How to Teach General Relativity

Hetzroni,

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2023

The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science

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Supposing that one is already familiar with special relativistic physics, what constitutes the best route via which to arrive at the architecture of the general theory of relativity? Although the later Einstein would stress the significance of mathematical and theoretical principles in answering this question, in this article we follow the lead of the earlier Einstein (circa 1916) and stress instead how one can go a long way to arriving at the general theory via inductive and empirical principles, without invoking presumptions concerning the geometrical structure of the final theory. We focus on the construction of the kinematical structure and the terms describing the coupling of matter to gravity. General covariance, understood and employed as a straightforward extrapolation of empirical considerations, is central to our derivation, together with what we dub the 'Methodological Equivalence Principle'. We argue that our approach has a number of virtues, both for one's understanding of the general theory of relativity, but also for pedagogy, since it stresses-to the greatest extent possible (a lesson which we inherit from Bell [1976])-both the methodological precedence of dynamical considerations to interpretative issues and the theoretical continuity between general relativity and its precursors. We conclude by comparing our approach to other philosophical approaches to general relativity and discussing the significance of empirically motivated methodological principles in the philosophy of science.

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Section: Equivalence Covariance Geometry and Dynamicsmentioning

confidence: 99%

How to Teach General Relativity

Hetzroni,

Read

2023

The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science

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Is spacetime curved? Assessing the underdetermination of general relativity and teleparallel gravity

Mulder,

Read

2024

Synthese

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Realism about general relativity (GR) seems to imply realism about spacetime curvature. The existence of the teleparallel equivalent of general relativity (TEGR) calls this into question, for (a) TEGR is set in a torsionful but flat spacetime, and (b) TEGR is empirically equivalent to GR. Knox (Stud Hist Philos Sci Part B Stud Hist Philos Mod Phys 42(4):264–275, 2011) claims that there is no genuine underdetermination between GR and TEGR; we call this verdict into question by isolating and addressing her individual arguments. In addition, we anticipate and evaluate two further worries for realism about the torsionful spacetimes of TEGR, which we call the ‘problem of operationalisability’ and the ‘problem of visualisability’.

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Special Relativity

Read

2023

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This Element presents the philosophy of special relativity: from the foundations of the theory in Newtonian mechanics, through its birth out of the ashes of 19th Century ether theory, through the various conceptual paradoxes which the theory presents, and finally arriving at some of its connections with Einstein's later theory of general relativity. It illustrates concepts such as inertial frames, force-free motion, and dynamical versus geometrical understandings of physics, the standard hierarchy of classical spacetimes, the concept of a symmetry of a physical theory, Poincaré invariant, Einstein's 1905 derivation of the Lorentz transformations, spacetime structure from Aristotle to Minkowski, general covariance, dynamical and geometrical approaches to spacetime, the conventionality of simultaneity, Frame-dependent effects, and the twin paradox.

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Background Independence in Classical and Quantum Gravity

Cited by 3 publications

References 112 publications

How to Teach General Relativity

How to Teach General Relativity

Is spacetime curved? Assessing the underdetermination of general relativity and teleparallel gravity

Special Relativity

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