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45Cosmic CensorshipPSA: Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association 1992. 1992.The cosmic censorship hypothesis states that the general theory of relativity has built in mechanisms to prevent the formation of "naked singularities," pathologies in the spacetime structure that lead to a breakdown in predictability and determinism. This paper discusses some attempts to turn the vague hypothesis into a precise conjecture. Evidence in favor of and against the conjecture is briefly reviewed. Finally the possibility of forming naked singularities via black hole evaporation due to…Read more
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174The meaning and status of Newton's law of inertia and the nature of gravitational forcesPhilosophy of Science 40 (3): 329-359. 1973.A four dimensional approach to Newtonian physics is used to distinguish between a number of different structures for Newtonian space-time and a number of different formulations of Newtonian gravitational theory. This in turn makes possible an in-depth study of the meaning and status of Newton's Law of Inertia and a detailed comparison of the Newtonian and Einsteinian versions of the Law of Inertia and the Newtonian and Einsteinian treatments of gravitational forces. Various claims about the stat…Read more
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198Exorcist XIV: The wrath of maxwell’s demon. Part II. from szilard to Landauer and beyondStudies in History and Philosophy of Science Part B: Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics 30 (1): 1-40. 1999.In this second part of our two-part paper we review and analyse attempts since 1950 to use information theoretic notions to exorcise Maxwell’s Demon. We argue through a simple dilemma that these attempted exorcisms are ineffective, whether they follow Szilard in seeking a compensating entropy cost in information acquisition or Landauer in seeking that cost in memory erasure. In so far as the Demon is a thermodynamic system already governed by the Second Law, no further supposition about informat…Read more
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10Philosophical Problems of the Internal and External Worlds: Essays on the Philosophy of Adolf Grunbaum (edited book)University of Pittsburgh Press. 1994.The inaugural volume of the Pitt-Konstanz series, devoted to the work of philosopher Adolf Grünbaum, encompasses the philosophical problems of space, time, and cosmology, the nature of scientific methodology, and the foundations of psychoanalysis
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164Bayes, Hume, and MiraclesFaith and Philosophy 10 (3): 293-310. 1993.Recent attempts to cast Hume’s argument against miracles in a Bayesian form are examined. It is shown how the Bayesian apparatus does serve to clarify the structure and substance of Hume’s argument. But the apparatus does not underwrite Hume’s various claims, such as that no testimony serves to establish the credibility of a miracle; indeed, the Bayesian analysis reveals various conditions under which it would be reasonable to reject the more interesting of Hume’s claims
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197On going backward in timePhilosophy of Science 34 (3): 211-222. 1967.This paper presents a critical examination of claims advanced by several philosophers to the effect that 'time travel' represents a physical possibility and that the interpretation of certain actually observed phenomena in terms of 'time travel' is both legitimate and advantageous. It is argued that (a) no convincing motivation for the introduction of the time travel hypothesis has been presented; (b) no coherent and interesting sense of 'going backward in time' has been supplied which makes 'ti…Read more
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16Review of A n Introduction to the Philosophy of Time and SpacePhilosophical Review 80 (4): 516. 1971.
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62Combining Statistical-Thermodynamics and Relativity Theory: Methodological and Foundations ProblemsPSA: Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association 1978. 1978.
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126Relativistic Invariance and Modal InterpretationsPhilosophy of Science 72 (4): 557-583. 2005.A number of arguments have been given to show that the modal interpretation of ordinary nonrelativistic quantum mechanics cannot be consistently extended to the relativistic setting. We find these arguments inconclusive. However, there is a prima facie reason to think that a tension exists between the modal interpretation and relativistic invariance; namely, the best candidate for a modal interpretation adapted to relativistic quantum field theory, a prescription due to Rob Clifton, comes out tr…Read more
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539Laws, symmetry, and symmetry breaking: Invariance, conservation principles, and objectivityPhilosophy of Science 71 (5): 1227--1241. 2004.Given its importance in modern physics, philosophers of science have paid surprisingly little attention to the subject of symmetries and invariances, and they have largely neglected the subtopic of symmetry breaking. I illustrate how the topic of laws and symmetries brings into fruitful interaction technical issues in physics and mathematics with both methodological issues in philosophy of science, such as the status of laws of physics, and metaphysical issues, such as the nature of objectivity.
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311The cosmological constant, the fate of the universe, unimodular gravity, and all thatStudies in History and Philosophy of Science Part B: Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics 34 (4): 559-577. 2003.The cosmological constant is back. Several lines of evidence point to the conclusion that either there is a positive cosmological constant or else the universe is filled with a strange form of matter (“quintessence”) that mimics some of the effects of a positive lambda. This paper investigates the implications of the former possibility. Two senses in which the cosmological constant can be a constant are distinguished: the capital Λ sense in which lambda is a universal constant on a par with the …Read more
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239Why ergodic theory does not explain the success of equilibrium statistical mechanicsBritish Journal for the Philosophy of Science 47 (1): 63-78. 1996.We argue that, contrary to some analyses in the philosophy of science literature, ergodic theory falls short in explaining the success of classical equilibrium statistical mechanics. Our claim is based on the observations that dynamical systems for which statistical mechanics works are most likely not ergodic, and that ergodicity is both too strong and too weak a condition for the required explanation: one needs only ergodic-like behaviour for the finite set of observables that matter, but the b…Read more
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20In the Beginning, At the End, and All in Between: Cosmological Aspects of TimeIn Friedrich Stadler & Michael Stöltzner (eds.), Time and History: Proceedings of the 28. International Ludwig Wittgenstein Symposium, Kirchberg Am Wechsel, Austria 2005, De Gruyter. pp. 155-180. 2006.
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237Pre-socratic quantum gravityIn Craig Callender & Nick Huggett (eds.), Physics Meets Philosophy at the Planck Scale, Cambridge University Press. pp. 213--55. 2001.Physicists who work on canonical quantum gravity will sometimes remark that the general covariance of general relativity is responsible for many of the thorniest technical and conceptual problems in their field.1 In particular, it is sometimes alleged that one can trace to this single source a variety of deep puzzles about the nature of time in quantum gravity, deep disagreements surrounding the notion of ‘observable’ in classical and quantum gravity, and deep questions about the nature of the e…Read more
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170How determinism can fail in classical physics and how quantum physics can (sometimes) provide a curePhilosophy of Science 75 (5): 817-829. 2008.Various fault modes of determinism in classical physics are outlined. It is shown how quantum mechanics can cure some forms of classical indeterminism. †To contact the author, please write to: Department of HPS, University of Pittsburgh, 1017 Cathedral of Learning, Pittsburgh, PA 15260; e‐mail: [email protected].
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16Bayes or Bust? A Critical Examination of Bayesian Confirmation TheoryPhilosophical Quarterly 45 (180): 377-379. 1995.
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31The implications of general covariance for the ontology and ideology of spacetimeIn Dennis Dieks (ed.), The Ontology of Spacetime, Elsevier. pp. 3--24. 2006.It generally agreed that the requirement of formal general covariance is a condition of the well-formedness of a spacetime theory and not a restriction on its content. Physicists commonly take the substantive requirement of general covariance to mean that the laws exhibit diffeomorphism invariance and that this invariance is a gauge symmetry. This latter requirement does place restrictions on the content of a spacetime theory. The present paper explores the implications of these restrictions for…Read more
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42Infinitely Challenging: Pitowsky’s Subjective Interpretation and the Physics of Infinite SystemsIn Yemima Ben-Menahem & Meir Hemmo (eds.), Probability in Physics, Springer. pp. 219--232. 2011.On Itamar Pitowsky’s subjective interpretation of quantum mechanics, “the Hilbert space formalism of quantum mechanics [QM] is just a new kind of probability theory”, one whose probabilities correspond to odds rational agents would accept on the outcomes of gambles concerning quantum event structures. Our aim here is to ask whether Pitowsky’s approach can be extended from its original context, of quantum theories for systems with an finite number of degrees of freedom, to systems with an infinit…Read more
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States of America
Areas of Specialization
Philosophy of Physical Science |
General Philosophy of Science |
Areas of Interest
Philosophy of Physical Science |
General Philosophy of Science |