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42The Next Generation Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration: History, Philosophy, and CultureGalaxies 11 (1): 32. 2023.This white paper outlines the plans of the History Philosophy Culture Working Group of the Next Generation Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration.
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32How Not to Establish the Non-renormalizability of GravityFoundations of Physics 48 (2): 237-252. 2018.General relativity cannot be formulated as a perturbatively renormalizable quantum field theory. An argument relying on the validity of the Bekenstein–Hawking entropy formula aims at dismissing gravity as non-renormalizable per se, against hopes that d-dimensional GR could turn out to have a non-perturbatively renormalizable d–dimensional quantum field theoretic formulation. In this note we discuss various forms of highly problematic semi-classical extrapolations assumed by both sides of the deb…Read more
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32Epistemic Holes and Determinism in Classical General RelativityBritish Journal for the Philosophy of Science 71 (3): 1093-1111. 2020.Determinism fails easily if spacetimes with points removed from the spacetime manifold are taken to be physically reasonable representations of a way the world could be according to classical general relativity. I discuss a recently proposed condition for determining which spacetimes have holes—epistemic hole freeness—and show that epistemic hole freeness gives the correct verdict in some non-globally hyperbolic spacetimes with a closed subset removed, certain spacetimes with genuinely indetermi…Read more
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27On the Epistemology of Observational Black Hole AstrophysicsIn Nora Mills Boyd, Siska De Baerdemaeker, Kevin Heng & Vera Matarese (eds.), Philosophy of Astrophysics: Stars, Simulations, and the Struggle to Determine What is Out There, Springer Verlag. pp. 225-2147483647. 2023.We discuss three philosophically interesting epistemic peculiarities of black hole astrophysics: (1) issues concerning whether and in what sense black holes do exist; (2) how to best approach multiplicity of available definitions of black holes; (3) short (i.e., accessible within an individual human lifespan) dynamical timescales present in many of the recent, as well as prospective, observations involving black holes. In each case we argue that the prospects for our epistemic situation are opti…Read more
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21Relativistic spacetimes and definitions of determinismEuropean Journal for Philosophy of Science 9 (2): 24. 2019.I discuss candidates for definitions of determinism in the context of general relativistic spacetimes, and argue that a definition which does not make recourse to any particular region of spacetime should be preferred over alternatives; one such notion is discussed in detail in the light of various physical examples. The emerging picture of determinism is a pluralist one: sometimes there is no unique way of making our intuitive concept of determinism precise. Instead, what is crucial for assessm…Read more
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19Interpreting cosmic no hair theorems: Is fatalism about the far future of expanding cosmological models unavoidable?Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part B: Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics 66 170-179. 2019.
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19Some Other “No Hole” Spacetimes Properties Are Unstable TooFoundations of Physics 50 (5): 379-384. 2020.Two interesting “no hole” spacetime properties, not being future nakedly singular) are unstable in the fine topology.
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11Relativistic spacetimes and definitions of determinismEuropean Journal for Philosophy of Science 9 (2): 1-14. 2019.I discuss candidates for definitions of determinism in the context of general relativistic spacetimes, and argue that a definition which does not make recourse to any particular region of spacetime should be preferred over alternatives; one such notion is discussed in detail in the light of various physical examples. The emerging picture of determinism is a pluralist one: sometimes there is no unique way of making our intuitive concept of determinism precise. Instead, what is crucial for assessm…Read more
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10Relativistic spacetimes and definitions of determinismEuropean Journal for Philosophy of Science 9 (2): 1-14. 2019.I discuss candidates for definitions of determinism in the context of general relativistic spacetimes, and argue that a definition which does not make recourse to any particular region of spacetime should be preferred over alternatives; one such notion is discussed in detail in the light of various physical examples. The emerging picture of determinism is a pluralist one: sometimes there is no unique way of making our intuitive concept of determinism precise. Instead, what is crucial for assessm…Read more
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Rotating black holes as time machines : an interim reportIn Antonio Vassallo (ed.), The Foundations of Spacetime Physics: Philosophical Perspectives, Routledge. 2022.
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Universität BonnPost-doctoral Fellow
Bonn, Germany