Editors:
- Unique book that covers meta-theories of spacetime theories from both physical and philosophical perspectives
- Varying levels of technicality appeal to a wide audience.
- Lays the foundation for continuing insight as more spacetime theories are developed
- Includes supplementary material: sn.pub/extras
Part of the book series: Einstein Studies (EINSTEIN, volume 13)
Buy it now
Buying options
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Other ways to access
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check for access.
Table of contents (11 chapters)
-
Front Matter
About this book
This contributed volume is the result of a July 2010 workshop at the University of Wuppertal Interdisciplinary Centre for Science and Technology Studies which brought together world-wide experts from physics, philosophy and history, in order to address a set of questions first posed in the 1950s: How do we compare spacetime theories? How do we judge, objectively, which is the “best” theory? Is there even a unique answer to this question?
The goal of the workshop, and of this book, is to contribute to the development of a meta-theory of spacetime theories. Such a meta-theory would reveal insights about specific spacetime theories by distilling their essential similarities and differences, deliver a framework for a class of theories that could be helpful as a blueprint to build other meta-theories, and provide a higher level viewpoint for judging which theory most accurately describes nature. But rather than drawing a map in broad strokes, the focus is on particularly rich regions in the “space of spacetime theories.”
This work will be of interest to physicists, as well as philosophers and historians of science working with or interested in General Relativity and/or Space, Time and Gravitation more generally.
Editors and Affiliations
-
Einstein Papers Project and HSS Division, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, Germany
Dennis Lehmkuhl
-
Theory and History of Science, Department of Philosophy, School of Human and Social Sciences, University of Wuppertal, Wuppertal, Germany
Gregor Schiemann
-
History of Mathematics (em.), Department of Mathematics, University of Wuppertal, Wuppertal, Germany
Erhard Scholz
Bibliographic Information
Book Title: Towards a Theory of Spacetime Theories
Editors: Dennis Lehmkuhl, Gregor Schiemann, Erhard Scholz
Series Title: Einstein Studies
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4939-3210-8
Publisher: Birkhäuser New York, NY
eBook Packages: Physics and Astronomy, Physics and Astronomy (R0)
Copyright Information: Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2017
Hardcover ISBN: 978-1-4939-3209-2Published: 06 January 2017
Softcover ISBN: 978-1-4939-7998-1Published: 28 April 2018
eBook ISBN: 978-1-4939-3210-8Published: 05 January 2017
Series ISSN: 2381-5833
Series E-ISSN: 2381-5841
Edition Number: 1
Number of Pages: VIII, 335
Number of Illustrations: 7 b/w illustrations
Topics: History of Mathematical Sciences, Theoretical, Mathematical and Computational Physics, Mathematical Physics, Differential Geometry