October 2014 - philphysmunich

Re: Winter Term 2014/5 Philosophy of Physics Reading Group
by Fletcher, Samuel Nov. 24, 2014

Nov. 24, 2014

Dear Colleagues (with apologies for cross-posting), This is just a reminder that the first meeting of the philosophy of physics reading group will be 14 October. The first reading will be the extended version of Mark Wilson's "What is 'Classical Mechanics' Anyway?" which is forthcoming in his anthology "Physics Avoidance and other Essays". (An abridged version appeared in "The Oxford Handbook in Philosophy of Physics", edited by R. Batterman.) You can access the essay here: http://www.philosophy.pitt.edu/sites/default/files/whatisclassicalmechanics… Although it is not technical, the article is long and Wilson's unique writing style demands close attention. Thus I'd recommend starting a bit earlier in order to be prepared for the 14th. I'll lead discussion that day. I'd like to ask at the outset, though, whether everyone would be interested in extending the discussion of the topic into the summer term. Currently, we have 7 meetings planned for this term, which will make it difficult to cover a great many of the topics in which you've expressed interest. With the summer term I estimate we can have another 6 meetings. Please let me know if you have an opinion on this one way or another. If general opinion is overwhelming in one direction or another, I'll finalize the syllabus for the rest of the meetings and send it out. Otherwise we'll make a decision during the first meeting. Best wishes, ~Sam On 2014-09-29 15:40, Fletcher, Samuel wrote: > Dear Colleagues (with apologies for cross-posting), > > The philosophy of physics reading group in the winter term will meet > biweekly on Tuesdays, starting 14 October, from 14:00-16:00, in E341 > of the main university building: > > https://lsf.verwaltung.uni-muenchen.de/qisserver/rds?state=verpublish&statu…. > > We will focus on topics in the foundations of classical mechanics, > especially different formulations of classical mechanics, their > interrelations, and their physical and metaphysical presuppositions. > As convener, I will send out a tentative syllabus around 7 October. > Until then, potentially interested participants are encouraged to > suggest stimulating papers. > > Best wishes, > Sam Fletcher

4 8

Irvine-Munich Workshop on the Foundations of Classical and Quantum Field Theories (LMU Munich, December 14th 2014)
by Karim Thébault Oct. 29, 2014

Oct. 29, 2014

********************************************* Irvine-Munich Workshop on the Foundations of Classical and Quantum Field Theories LMU Munich, December 14th 2014 http://www.mcmp.philosophie.uni-muenchen.de/events/workshops/container/foun… ********************************************* Since its introduction in the nineteenth century, the concept of a field as an independent physical entity has become central to modern physics. Many highly successful classical theories, most notably electromagnetism and gravitation, were reformulated along field-theoretic lines, leading to advances in the understanding of their respective subject matters as well as enriching knowledge of field theory itself. The great development of these classical field theories influenced the founders of quantum mechanics, with the subsequent formulation of quantum field theories providing molds from which the Standard Model of particle physics has been cast. Yet the profound difficulties of finding a quantum field theory that incorporates gravitation have forced physicists and philosophers to confront the foundations of field theory with more scrutiny. While the multifaceted nature of the difficulties with quantum field theory may have reopened inquiry into classical field theories in hopes of finding potent analogies, this study has developed a rich life of its own. This workshop brings together communities of researchers working from different viewpoints on the foundations of both classical and quantum field theory. Speakers Erik Curiel (MCMP/LMU) Benjamin Feintzeig (UC Irvine) Samuel Fletcher (MCMP/LMU) Brian Padden (MCMP/LMU) Sarita Rosenstock (UC Irvine) Michael Stoeltzner (South Carolina) Karim Thébault (MCMP/LMU) James Weatherall (UC Irvine) ********************************************* For information about practical matters and registration, please contact one of the organizers: Samuel Fletcher (Samuel.Fletcher(a)lrz.uni-muenchen.de) or Karim Thébault (Karim.Thebault(a)lrz.uni-muenchen.de)

1 0

Talks by Sam Fletcher and Sam Sanders at MCMP (Oct. 15)
by Dardashti, Radin Oct. 13, 2014

Oct. 13, 2014

Speaker: Samuel Fletcher (MCMP) Wednesday 15th Oct. 2014 Location: Ludwigstr. 31 room 021 Time: 16:15 - 17:45 Title: On the Local Flatness of Spacetime Abstract: Many discussions of the foundations of general relativity put a special emphasis on describing every relativistic spacetime as “locally flat”, or as “locally Minkowskian”. Such claims are prima facie puzzling: after all, curvature is itself a local property, being described by a tensor field on spacetime. In general, relativistic spacetimes have non-vanishing curvature, so there is a straightforward sense in which they are not locally flat. Still, there is a natural intuition behind claims of “local flatness” arising from analogy with a sufficiently small region of a curved surface, like that of the Earth, which can to a good approximation be described as planar. But like many “principles” of general relativity, there does not seem to be much consensus regarding how to make this intuition more precise. Without attempting a comprehensive survey, we note three common articulations of what it could mean for spacetime to be “locally flat” or “locally Minkowskian,” arguing that each of them is unsatisfactory. We then explore a different, but precise and coordinate-independent sense in which relativistic spacetimes might be described as (approximately) locally flat. --------------------------------------- Speaker: Sam Sanders (MCMP) Wednesday 15th Oct. 2014 Location: Ludwigstr. 31 room 021 Time: 18:15 - 19:45 Title: Constructivism in Physics and Platonism in Mathematics Abstract: First of all, I argue that constructive mathematics (in the sense of Bishop, going back to Brouwer) is an essential part of the mathematical practice of physics. My motivation is the observation that to test a physical theory against experiments, we have to compute or approximate the mathematical objects in that theory in order to compare them to our experimental data. Such approximation procedure is generally impossible for non-constructive objects. In particular, I show that the intuitive “calculus with infinitesimals” from physics naturally gives rise to constructive mathematics. Secondly, I argue that predicativist mathematics (in the sense of Russell, Weyl, and Feferman) is incoherent from the point of view of Nonstandard Analysis. In particular, to remove the paradoxes in naive set theory, Russell proposed accepting the set of natural numbers as a finished totality, but banning subsets defined using the “vicious circle principle”, nowadays called “impredicative definition”. The textbook example of the latter is the Suslin functional, while arithmetical comprehension is the perfect example of predicativist mathematics. I show that the Suslin functional is equivalent to a nonstandard principle of arithmetical comprehension over a predicativist system of Nonstandard Analysis.

1 0