Lawrence Sklar

Statistical mechanics is one of the crucial fundamental theories of physics, and in his new book Lawrence Sklar, one of the pre-eminent philosophers of physics, offers a comprehensive, non-technical introduction to that theory and to attempts to understand its foundational elements. Among the topics treated in detail are: probability and statistical explanation, the basic issues in both equilibrium and non-equilibrium statistical mechanics, the role of cosmology, the reduction of thermodynamics to statistical mechanics, and the alleged foundation of the very notion of time asymmetry in the entropic asymmetry of systems in time. The book emphasises the interaction of scientific and philosophical modes of reasoning, and in this way will interest all philosophers of science as well as those in physics and chemistry concerned with philosophical questions. The book could also be read by an informed general reader interested in the foundations of modern science

In theoretical physics the physical states of systems are represented by components of mathematical structures. This paper explores three ways in which the representation of states by mathematics can give rise to foundational problems, sometimes on the side of the mathematics and sometimes on the side of understanding what the physical states are that the mathematics represents, that is on the side of interpreting the theory. Examples are given from classical mechanics, quantum mechanics and statistical mechanics

Salmon, following Reichenbach and others, maintained that distant simultaneity was conventional in a special relativistic world in a way in which this was not so in prerelativistic spacetime. This paper surveys and criticizes a number of proposals to unpack this claim. It goes on to argue that if the claim has validity, it rests upon differing facts about epistemic accessibility of temporal relations in the different spacetimes, and not directly upon any facts about differing causal structures in these worlds.

Although now replaced by more modern theories, classical mechanics remains a core foundational element of physical theory. From its inception, the theory of dynamics has been riddled with conceptual issues and differing philosophical interpretations and throughout its long historical development, it has shown subtle conceptual refinement. The interpretive program for the theory has also shown deep evolutionary change over time. Lawrence Sklar discusses crucial issues in the central theory from which contemporary foundational theories are derived and shows how some core issues have nevertheless remained deep puzzles despite the increasingly sophisticated understanding of the theory which has been acquired over time. His book will be of great interest to philosophers of science, philosophers in general and physicists concerned with foundational interpretive issues in their field.