The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Physics (Oxford Handbooks)
Language: English
Pages: 704
ISBN: 0195392043
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
This Oxford Handbook provides an overview of many of the topics that currently engage philosophers of physics. It surveys new issues and the problems that have become a focus of attention in recent years. It also provides up-to-date discussions of the still very important problems that dominated the field in the past.
In the late 20th Century, the philosophy of physics was largely focused on orthodox Quantum Mechanics and Relativity Theory. The measurement problem, the question of the possibility of hidden variables, and the nature of quantum locality dominated the literature on the quantum mechanics, whereas questions about relationalism vs. substantivalism, and issues about underdetermination of theories dominated the literature on spacetime. These issues still receive considerable attention from philosophers, but many have shifted their attentions to other questions related to quantum mechanics and to spacetime theories. Quantum field theory has become a major focus, particularly from the point of view of algebraic foundations. Concurrent with these trends, there has been a focus on understanding gauge invariance and symmetries.
The philosophy of physics has evolved even further in recent years with attention being paid to theories that, for the most part, were largely ignored in the past. For example, the relationship between thermodynamics and statistical mechanics---once thought to be a paradigm instance of unproblematic theory reduction---is now a hotly debated topic. The implicit, and sometimes explicit, reductionist methodology of both philosophers and physicists has been severely criticized and attention has now turned to the explanatory and descriptive roles of "non-fundamental,'' phenomenological theories. This shift of attention includes "old'' theories such as classical mechanics, once deemed to be of little philosophical interest. Furthermore, some philosophers have become more interested in "less fundamental'' contemporary physics such as condensed matter theory. Questions abound with implications for the nature of models, idealizations, and explanation in physics. This Handbook showcases all these aspects of this complex and dynamic discipline.
Modern Quantum Mechanics (2nd Edition)
cost of considerable computational complexity. And so the modeling shifts proceed, each alteration in characteristic scale length commonly favoring a different “ontology” in its modeling material. Here is a useful way to think about the relationships between scale sizes. In presuming that the point masses within a rigid part retain their comparative distances, we are actually pursuing a rough-hewn stratagem for profitable
making sense of continuously distributed quantities that date to the time of Zeno. Page 21 of 45 What is “Classical Mechanics” Anyway? Figure 2.19 Suppose we have a target with a bull's-eye and two archers: skilled Marian and inept Robin (figure 2.19). What are Marian's and Robin's respective probabilities for hitting the exact center of the target c? Answer: most likely zero in both cases, because if the “hit c exactly” answers were credited with any finite amount ε, then (under the
[A]ll who have even a slight acquaintance with the subject know that the laws of motion, and the law of gravitation, contain absolutely all of Physical Astronomy, in the sense in which that term is commonly employed: viz., the investigation of the motions and mutual perturbations of a number of masses (usually treated as mere points, or at least as rigid bodies) forming any system whatever of sun, planets, and
(50) In the applications considered here, only two characteristic scale lengths are generally relevant, but Batterman's essay in this volume surveys some of the exciting recent work that promises a capacity to intermingle data extracted from a wider array of scale sizes. (51) P. G. Tait, Heat (London: MacMillan, 1895), 9–10. (52) The claim that everyday classificatory words operate along organizational principles similar to those surveyed
of the difference of the advanced potential and the retarded potential. If we assume this, the first term which is problematic in the limit goes away. Since the later terms all go to zero in the limit, we are left with (24) as the self-force on a point-charge (where tr = 2e2 is the time it takes for light to cross the classical electron 3 c 3m radius). The equation of motion for a charged point-particle, known in the nonrelativistic case as the AbrahamLorentz equation, is (25)
