The Necessary Structure of the All-pervading Aether

1. Auflage 2013
ISBN: 978-3-11-032517-1
Verlag: De Gruyter

Buch, Englisch, 226 Seiten, Format (B × H): 153 mm x 216 mm, Gewicht: 418 g

Reihe: ISSN

In this book I investigate the necessary structure of the aether – the stuff that fills the whole universe. Some of my conclusions are. 1. There is an enormous variety of structures that the aether might, for all we know, have. 2. Probably the aether is point-free. 3. In that case, it should be distinguished from Space-time, which is either a fiction or a construct. 4. Even if the aether has points, we should reject the orthodoxy that all regions are grounded in points by summation. 5. If the aether is point-free but not continuous, its most likely structure has extended atoms that are not simples. 6. Space-time is symmetric if and only if the aether is continuous. 7. If the aether is continuous, we should reject the standard interpretation of General Relativity, in which geometry determines gravity. 8. Contemporary physics undermines an objection to discrete aether based on scale invariance, but does not offer much positive support.

Zielgruppe

Ontologie; Philosophie; Wissenschaftstheorie

Autoren/Hrsg.

Forrest, Peter

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Philosophie Naturphilosophie, Philosophie und Evolution
• Geisteswissenschaften Philosophie Philosophie der Mathematik, Philosophie der Physik
• Geisteswissenschaften Philosophie Metaphysik, Ontologie

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Frontmatter
Introduction
1. A Survey of Hypotheses about the Aether’s Structure
2. Conflicting Intuitions
3. Which Intuition to Abandon?
4. Hypervolume and Topology
5. The Problem with Differentiable Manifolds
6. Contemporary Physics and Discrete Aether
7. Symmetric Space-time
Conclusions
Glossary
References
Index