DE / EN
History and Philosophy of Physics Research Seminar
Time and Place: Tuesdays from 4.15pm to 5:45pm, Institute of Philosophy (Main building of the University of Bonn, Room 1.070).
Schedule for the Winter Semester 2019/2020:
8.10.2019: Dennis Lehmkuhl (Bonn):
“Why integrated history and philosophy of physics? The case of gravity”
Abstract: I start out with some general remarks about how history of physics, philosophy of physics, and practised physics, relate to one another, and argue that integrated history and philosophy of physics is a particularly fruitful way to understand what’s really going on. I will then draw on my own experiences in working with Albert Einstein’s manuscripts and correspondence in an attempt to understand what he thought gravity is and what general relativity does with gravity, in order to then investigate whether his is the most promising way to understand the theory.
15.10.2019 Patrick Dürr (Oxford and Bonn):
“Unweyling three Mysteries of Nordström Gravity”
Abstract: The paper re-examines Nordström’s scalar theory of gravity (NG) – arguably the most convincing relativistic theory of gravity before the advent of General Relativity. It exists in two different formulations. In Nordström’s original one (1913), NG appears to describe a scalar gravitational field on Minkowski spacetime. In Einstein and Fokker’s (1914) version, NG seems to be a spacetime theory: It reconceptualises gravitational effects as manifestations of non-Minkowskian inertial structure. Both variants of NG give rise to three contradictory verdicts on the status and validity of fundamental principles: the Weak Equivalence Principle, the existence of gravitational energy, and energy conservation. Given the putative equivalence of both variants of NG, this ambiguity seems paradoxical to the spacetime realist. I’ll proffer a resolution from the perspective of integrable Weyl geometry: The paradoxes rest on the failure to recognise a more apposite spacetime setting for NG.
22.10.2019 Erik Curiel (MCMP Munich):
"Kinematics, Dynamics, and the Structure of Theories"
ABSTRACT: "Every physical theory has (at least) two different forms of mathematical equations to represent its target systems: the dynamical (equations of motion) and the kinematical (kinematical constraints). Kinematical constraints are differentiated from equations of motion by the fact that their particular form is fixed once and for all, irrespective of the interactions the system enters into. By contrast, the particular form of a system's equations of motion depends essentially on the particular interaction the system enters into. All contemporary accounts of the structure and semantics of physical theory treat dynamics, i.e., the equations of motion, as the most important feature of a theory for the purposes of its philosophical analysis. I argue to the contrary that it is the kinematical constraints that determine the structure and empirical content of a physical theory in the most important ways: they function as necessary preconditions for the appropriate application of the theory; they differentiate types of physical systems; they are necessary for the equations of motion to be well posed or even just cogent; and they guide the experimentalist in the design of tools for measurement and observation. It is thus satisfaction of the kinematical constraints that renders meaning to those terms representing a system's physical quantities in the first place, even before one can ask whether or not the system satisfies the theory's equations of motion."
5.11.2019: Jamee Elder (Notre Dame and Bonn):
“Black hole coalescence: models and measurement”
12.11.2019 Christian Röken (Bonn):
“An integral spectral representation of the massive Dirac propagator in the non-extreme Kerr geometry”
19.11.2019 Taimara Passero (Sao Paulo and Bonn):
"Some philosophical questions about the Geometrization in GR"
26.11.2019 Juliusz Doboszewski (Bonn):
“Paint it black. White hole instability and black to white hole quantum transitions”
3.12.2019:
TBA
10.12.2019 Harvey Brown (Oxford):
TBA
17.12.2019 Kian Salimkhani (Bonn):
“The dynamical approach to spin-2 gravity”
7.1.2020 Erhard Scholz (Wuppertal):
“Is integrable Weyl geometry useful in phyiscs?”
14.1.2020 Stephan Hartmann (MCMP Munich):
TBA
21.1.2020 Holger Lyre (Magdeburg):
“Structuralism about Parity. Handedness, mirror symmetry, and the metaphysics of space”
28.1.2020 Alexander Blum (MPIWG Berlin):
“The prehistory of of proving non-renormalizability in quantum gravity”
Time and Place: Tuesdays from 4.15pm to 5:45pm, Institute of Philosophy (Main building of the University of Bonn, Room 1.070).
Schedule for the Winter Semester 2019/2020:
8.10.2019: Dennis Lehmkuhl (Bonn):
“Why integrated history and philosophy of physics? The case of gravity”
Abstract: I start out with some general remarks about how history of physics, philosophy of physics, and practised physics, relate to one another, and argue that integrated history and philosophy of physics is a particularly fruitful way to understand what’s really going on. I will then draw on my own experiences in working with Albert Einstein’s manuscripts and correspondence in an attempt to understand what he thought gravity is and what general relativity does with gravity, in order to then investigate whether his is the most promising way to understand the theory.
15.10.2019 Patrick Dürr (Oxford and Bonn):
“Unweyling three Mysteries of Nordström Gravity”
Abstract: The paper re-examines Nordström’s scalar theory of gravity (NG) – arguably the most convincing relativistic theory of gravity before the advent of General Relativity. It exists in two different formulations. In Nordström’s original one (1913), NG appears to describe a scalar gravitational field on Minkowski spacetime. In Einstein and Fokker’s (1914) version, NG seems to be a spacetime theory: It reconceptualises gravitational effects as manifestations of non-Minkowskian inertial structure. Both variants of NG give rise to three contradictory verdicts on the status and validity of fundamental principles: the Weak Equivalence Principle, the existence of gravitational energy, and energy conservation. Given the putative equivalence of both variants of NG, this ambiguity seems paradoxical to the spacetime realist. I’ll proffer a resolution from the perspective of integrable Weyl geometry: The paradoxes rest on the failure to recognise a more apposite spacetime setting for NG.
22.10.2019 Erik Curiel (MCMP Munich):
"Kinematics, Dynamics, and the Structure of Theories"
ABSTRACT: "Every physical theory has (at least) two different forms of mathematical equations to represent its target systems: the dynamical (equations of motion) and the kinematical (kinematical constraints). Kinematical constraints are differentiated from equations of motion by the fact that their particular form is fixed once and for all, irrespective of the interactions the system enters into. By contrast, the particular form of a system's equations of motion depends essentially on the particular interaction the system enters into. All contemporary accounts of the structure and semantics of physical theory treat dynamics, i.e., the equations of motion, as the most important feature of a theory for the purposes of its philosophical analysis. I argue to the contrary that it is the kinematical constraints that determine the structure and empirical content of a physical theory in the most important ways: they function as necessary preconditions for the appropriate application of the theory; they differentiate types of physical systems; they are necessary for the equations of motion to be well posed or even just cogent; and they guide the experimentalist in the design of tools for measurement and observation. It is thus satisfaction of the kinematical constraints that renders meaning to those terms representing a system's physical quantities in the first place, even before one can ask whether or not the system satisfies the theory's equations of motion."
5.11.2019: Jamee Elder (Notre Dame and Bonn):
“Black hole coalescence: models and measurement”
12.11.2019 Christian Röken (Bonn):
“An integral spectral representation of the massive Dirac propagator in the non-extreme Kerr geometry”
19.11.2019 Taimara Passero (Sao Paulo and Bonn):
"Some philosophical questions about the Geometrization in GR"
26.11.2019 Juliusz Doboszewski (Bonn):
“Paint it black. White hole instability and black to white hole quantum transitions”
3.12.2019:
TBA
10.12.2019 Harvey Brown (Oxford):
TBA
17.12.2019 Kian Salimkhani (Bonn):
“The dynamical approach to spin-2 gravity”
7.1.2020 Erhard Scholz (Wuppertal):
“Is integrable Weyl geometry useful in phyiscs?”
14.1.2020 Stephan Hartmann (MCMP Munich):
TBA
21.1.2020 Holger Lyre (Magdeburg):
“Structuralism about Parity. Handedness, mirror symmetry, and the metaphysics of space”
28.1.2020 Alexander Blum (MPIWG Berlin):
“The prehistory of of proving non-renormalizability in quantum gravity”
For more philosophy of physics events taking place in Bonn, please see here.