Why Not a Sound Postulate?

Cheng, Bryan; Read, James

doi:10.1007/s10701-021-00479-0

Cited by 4 publications

References 51 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

The Lorentz Transformation in a Fishbowl: A Comment on Cheng and Read’s “Why Not a Sound Postulate?”

Shanahan

2023

Found Phys

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

In support of their contention that it is the absence of a subsisting medium that imbues the speed of light with fundamentality, Bryan Cheng and James Read discuss certain “fishbowl universes” in which physical influences evolve, not at the speed of light, but that of sound. The Lorentz transformation simulated in these sonic universes, which the authors cite from the literature of analogue gravity, is not that of Einstein, for whom an aether was “superfluous”, but that of the earlier relativity of Lorentz and Poincaré, which did suppose such a medium. The authors’ intention is not to argue analogically, but simply to contrast the situation of light with that of sound. However, I argue that these universes are too successful as analogues to support the authors’ case. By reducing Lorentzian relativity to its bare essentials, they provide a compelling demonstration of the viability and explanatory strengths of the earlier theory. They show how a thoroughly wave-theoretic treatment of the elementary particles would explain why all aspects of matter transform in like manner, thereby avoiding a difficulty that was a significant reason for the demise of Lorentzian relativity after 1905. Importantly, these sonic universes suggest a unifying explanation, not only of the Lorentz transformation and de Broglie wave, but of the principle of relativity, which was merely postulated, rather than explained, by Einstein in 1905.

show abstract

The Lorentz Transformation in a Fishbowl: A Comment on Cheng and Read’s “Why Not a Sound Postulate?”

Shanahan

2023

Found Phys

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

Euclidean spacetime functionalism

Read

Cheng

2022

Synthese

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

We explore the significance of physical theories set in Euclidean spacetimes (i.e., theories with Riemannian rather than pseudo-Riemannian metrical structure). In particular, we explore (a) the use of these theories in contemporary physics at large, and (b) the sense in which there can be a notion of temporal evolution in these theories. Having achieved these tasks, we proceed to reflect on the lessons that one can take from such theories for Knox’s ‘inertial frame’ version of spacetime functionalism, which seems (on the face of it) to issue incorrect verdicts in the case of theories with Euclidean metrical structure.

show abstract

Special Relativity

Read

2023

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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.

show abstract

Why Not a Sound Postulate?

Cited by 4 publications

References 51 publications

The Lorentz Transformation in a Fishbowl: A Comment on Cheng and Read’s “Why Not a Sound Postulate?”

The Lorentz Transformation in a Fishbowl: A Comment on Cheng and Read’s “Why Not a Sound Postulate?”

Euclidean spacetime functionalism

Special Relativity

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About