The Geometry of Conventionality
History and Philosophy of Physics
2023-06-22 v4 General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology
Abstract
There is a venerable position in the philosophy of space and time that holds that the geometry of spacetime is conventional, provided one is willing to postulate a "universal force field". Here we ask a more focused question, inspired by this literature: in the context of our best classical theories of space and time, if one understands "force" in the standard way, can one accommodate different geometries by postulating a new force field? We argue that the answer depends on one's theory. In Newtonian gravitation the answer is "yes"; in relativity theory, it is "no".
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.1302.1686,
title = {The Geometry of Conventionality},
author = {James Owen Weatherall and John Byron Manchak},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1302.1686},
year = {2023}
}
Comments
17 pages, 1 figure, forthcoming in Philosophy of Science