English

Theoretical Equivalence in Physics

History and Philosophy of Physics 2018-10-19 v1

Abstract

I review the philosophical literature on the question of when two physical theories are equivalent. This includes a discussion of empirical equivalence, which is often taken to be necessary, and sometimes taken to be sufficient, for theoretical equivalence; and "interpretational" equivalence, which is the idea that two theories are equivalent just in case they have the same interpretation. It also includes a discussion of several formal notions of equivalence that have been considered in the recent philosophical literature, including (generalized) definitional equivalence and categorical equivalence. The article concludes with a brief discussion of the relationship between equivalence and duality.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1810.08192,
  title  = {Theoretical Equivalence in Physics},
  author = {James Owen Weatherall},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1810.08192},
  year   = {2018}
}

Comments

24 pages

R2 v1 2026-06-23T04:44:56.639Z