The necessary structure of the all-pervading aether : discrete or continuous? Simple or symmetric? / Peter Forrest.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Forrest, Peter.

Series:

Philosophische Analyse ; Bd. 49.

Philosophische analyse = Philosophical analysis ; Bd. 49

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Ether (Space).

Space and time.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (230 pages) : digital file(s).

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Frankfurt : Ontos Verlag, 2012.

Language Note:

English

System Details:

text file

Summary:

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.

Contents:

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

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

This eBook is made available Open Access. Unless otherwise specified individually in the content, the work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives (CC BY-NC-ND) license: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0 https://www.degruyter.com/dg/page/open-access-policy

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (degruyter WWW site, viewed July 27, 2020).

ISBN:

9783110325928

3110325926

OCLC:

851972139

Access Restriction:

Unrestricted online access