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Rietdijk–Putnam Argument
In philosophy, the Rietdijk–Putnam argument, named after and Hilary Putnam, uses 20th-century findings in physicsspecifically in special relativityto support the philosophical position known as four-dimensionalism. If special relativity is true, then each observer will have their own '' plane of simultaneity'', which contains a unique set of events that constitutes the observer's present moment. Observers moving at different relative velocities have different planes of simultaneity, and hence different sets of events that are present. Each observer considers their set of present events to be a three-dimensional universe, but even the slightest movement of the head or offset in distance between observers can cause the three-dimensional universes to have differing content. If each three-dimensional universe exists, then the existence of multiple three-dimensional universes suggests that the universe is four-dimensional. The argument is named after the discussions by Rietdijk (1 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Philosophy
Philosophy (from , ) is the systematized study of general and fundamental questions, such as those about existence, reason, Epistemology, knowledge, Ethics, values, Philosophy of mind, mind, and Philosophy of language, language. Such questions are often posed as problems to be studied or resolved. Some sources claim the term was coined by Pythagoras ( BCE), although this theory is disputed by some. Philosophical methodology, Philosophical methods include Socratic questioning, questioning, Socratic method, critical discussion, dialectic, rational argument, and systematic presentation. in . Historically, ''philosophy'' encompassed all bodies of knowledge and a practitioner was known as a ''philosopher''."The English word "philosophy" is first attested to , meaning "knowledge, body of knowledge." "natural philosophy," which began as a discipline in ancient India and Ancient Greece, encompasses astronomy, medicine, and physics. For example, Isaac Newton, Newton's 1687 ''Phil ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hilary Putnam
Hilary Whitehall Putnam (; July 31, 1926 – March 13, 2016) was an American philosopher, mathematician, and computer scientist, and a major figure in analytic philosophy in the second half of the 20th century. He made significant contributions to philosophy of mind, philosophy of language, philosophy of mathematics, and philosophy of science. Outside philosophy, Putnam contributed to mathematics and computer science. Together with Martin Davis he developed the Davis–Putnam algorithm for the Boolean satisfiability problem and he helped demonstrate the unsolvability of Hilbert's tenth problem. Putnam was known for his willingness to apply equal scrutiny to his own philosophical positions as to those of others, subjecting each position to rigorous analysis until he exposed its flaws. As a result, he acquired a reputation for frequently changing his positions. In philosophy of mind, Putnam is known for his argument against the type-identity of mental and physical states ba ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Special Relativity
In physics, the special theory of relativity, or special relativity for short, is a scientific theory regarding the relationship between space and time. In Albert Einstein's original treatment, the theory is based on two postulates: # The laws of physics are invariant (that is, identical) in all inertial frames of reference (that is, frames of reference with no acceleration). # The speed of light in vacuum is the same for all observers, regardless of the motion of the light source or the observer. Origins and significance Special relativity was originally proposed by Albert Einstein in a paper published on 26 September 1905 titled "On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies".Albert Einstein (1905)''Zur Elektrodynamik bewegter Körper'', ''Annalen der Physik'' 17: 891; English translatioOn the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodiesby George Barker Jeffery and Wilfrid Perrett (1923); Another English translation On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies by Megh Nad Saha (1920). The ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Four-dimensionalism
In philosophy, four-dimensionalism (also known as the doctrine of temporal parts) is the ontological position that an object's persistence through time is like its extension through space. Thus, an object that exists in time has temporal parts in the various subregions of the total region of time it occupies, just like an object that exists in a region of space has at least one part in every subregion of that space. Four-dimensionalists typically argue for treating time as analogous to space, usually leading them to endorse the doctrine of '' eternalism''. This is a philosophical approach to the ontological nature of time, according to which all points in time are equally "real", as opposed to the presentist idea that only the present is real. As some eternalists argue by analogy, just as all spatially distant objects and events are equally as real as those close to us, temporally distant objects and events are as real as those currently present to us. ''Perdurantism''—or '' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Relativity Of Simultaneity
In physics, the relativity of simultaneity is the concept that ''distant simultaneity'' – whether two spatially separated events occur at the same time – is not absolute, but depends on the observer's reference frame. This possibility was raised by mathematician Henri Poincaré in 1900, and thereafter became a central idea in the special theory of relativity. Description According to the special theory of relativity introduced by Albert Einstein, it is impossible to say in an ''absolute'' sense that two distinct events occur at the same time if those events are separated in space. If one reference frame assigns precisely the same time to two events that are at different points in space, a reference frame that is moving relative to the first will generally assign different times to the two events (the only exception being when motion is exactly perpendicular to the line connecting the locations of both events). For example, a car crash in London and another in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Argument
An argument is a statement or group of statements called premises intended to determine the degree of truth or acceptability of another statement called conclusion. Arguments can be studied from three main perspectives: the logical, the dialectical and the rhetorical perspective. In logic, an argument is usually expressed not in natural language but in a symbolic formal language, and it can be defined as any group of propositions of which one is claimed to follow from the others through deductively valid inferences that preserve truth from the premises to the conclusion. This logical perspective on argument is relevant for scientific fields such as mathematics and computer science. Logic is the study of the forms of reasoning in arguments and the development of standards and criteria to evaluate arguments. Deductive arguments can be valid, and the valid ones can be sound: in a valid argument, premisses necessitate the conclusion, even if one or more of the premises is false ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Roger Penrose
Sir Roger Penrose (born 8 August 1931) is an English mathematician, mathematical physicist, philosopher of science and Nobel Laureate in Physics. He is Emeritus Rouse Ball Professor of Mathematics in the University of Oxford, an emeritus fellow of Wadham College, Oxford, and an honorary fellow of St John's College, Cambridge and University College London. Penrose has contributed to the mathematical physics of general relativity and cosmology. He has received several prizes and awards, including the 1988 Wolf Prize in Physics, which he shared with Stephen Hawking for the Penrose–Hawking singularity theorems, and one half of the 2020 Nobel Prize in Physics "for the discovery that black hole formation is a robust prediction of the general theory of relativity". He is regarded as one of the greatest living physicists, mathematicians and scientists, and is particularly noted for the breadth and depth of his work in both natural and formal sciences. Early life and educati ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Andromeda Galaxy
The Andromeda Galaxy (IPA: ), also known as Messier 31, M31, or NGC 224 and originally the Andromeda Nebula, is a barred spiral galaxy with the diameter of about approximately from Earth and the nearest large galaxy to the Milky Way. The galaxy's name stems from the area of Earth's sky in which it appears, the constellation of Andromeda, which itself is named after the princess who was the wife of Perseus in Greek mythology. The virial mass of the Andromeda Galaxy is of the same order of magnitude as that of the Milky Way, at . The mass of either galaxy is difficult to estimate with any accuracy, but it was long thought that the Andromeda Galaxy is more massive than the Milky Way by a margin of some 25% to 50%. This has been called into question by a 2018 study that cited a lower estimate on the mass of the Andromeda Galaxy, combined with preliminary reports on a 2019 study estimating a higher mass of the Milky Way. The Andromeda Galaxy has a diameter of about , making it t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Howard Stein (philosopher)
Howard Stein (born January 21, 1929) is an American philosopher and historian of science. He is an emeritus professor at the University of Chicago. Biography Stein was born on January 21, 1929, in New York City. He received a BA from Columbia University in 1947, where he studied under John Herman Randall Jr., Irwin Edman, and Ernest Nagel, before obtaining a PhD from the University of Chicago in 1958, and an MS from the University of Michigan in 1959. He joined the faculty of the University of Chicago in 1951 before teaching at Brandeis University, Case Western Reserve University and Columbia University. He also worked for Honeywell as a mathematician and engineer in between his teaching career. He returned to the University of Chicago in 1980 and retired in 2000. Stein's work has centered around the philosophy of physics, as well as the history of physics and mathematics. His 1967 paper, "Newtonian Space Time," inaugurated the modern study of the foundations of physics. Stein w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dennis Dieks
Dennis Geert Bernardus Johan Dieks (born 1 June 1949, in Amsterdam) is a Dutch physicist and philosopher of physics. Work In 1982 he proved the no-cloning theorem (independently discovered in the same year by William Wootters and Wojciech H. Zurek). In 1989 he proposed a new interpretation of quantum mechanics, later known as a version of the modal interpretation of quantum mechanics. He also worked on the philosophy of space and time, the logic of probabilistic reasoning, and the theory of explanation. Dieks is a professor at Utrecht University and a member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences since 2008. He is co-editor of the journal ''Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics'', an editor of the journal ''Foundations of Physics'' (Editor-in-chief C. Rovelli) and co-editor of the book series ''European Studies in Philosophy of Science'' (Springer). Dieks was also an able chess player, reaching a maximum Elo rating of 2290 in 1974 and even beating J ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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