Towards a Theory of Spacetime Theories
Editors: Lehmkuhl, Dennis, Schiemann, Gregor, Scholz, Erhard (Eds.)
Free Preview- 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
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- About this book
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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.
- Table of contents (11 chapters)
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Introduction: Towards A Theory of Spacetime Theories
Pages 1-11
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Inertial Motion, Explanation, and the Foundations of Classical Spacetime Theories
Pages 13-42
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A Primer on Energy Conditions
Pages 43-104
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Background Independence, Diffeomorphism Invariance and the Meaning of Coordinates
Pages 105-143
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Gauge Theory of Gravity and Spacetime
Pages 145-169
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Table of contents (11 chapters)
- Download Preface 1 PDF (40.9 KB)
- Download Sample pages 2 PDF (376.4 KB)
- Download Table of contents PDF (47.7 KB)
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Bibliographic Information
- Bibliographic Information
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- Book Title
- Towards a Theory of Spacetime Theories
- Editors
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- Dennis Lehmkuhl
- Gregor Schiemann
- Erhard Scholz
- Series Title
- Einstein Studies
- Series Volume
- 13
- Copyright
- 2017
- Publisher
- Birkhäuser Basel
- Copyright Holder
- Springer Science+Business Media, LLC
- eBook ISBN
- 978-1-4939-3210-8
- DOI
- 10.1007/978-1-4939-3210-8
- Hardcover ISBN
- 978-1-4939-3209-2
- Softcover ISBN
- 978-1-4939-7998-1
- Series ISSN
- 2381-5833
- Edition Number
- 1
- Number of Pages
- VIII, 335
- Number of Illustrations
- 7 b/w illustrations
- Topics
