Dear all,
You are hereby invited to the next "Physics meets Philosophy" talk by
Samuel C. Fletcher (University of Oxford)
Title: Spare the Rod: Relativity as Pure Chronometry (see abstract
below)
Date: March 28th (Friday)
Time: 11:00-12:30
Location: IQOQI Seminar room (Boltzmanngasse 3, 2nd floor)
Zoom link (for those that cannot join in person):
https://univienna.zoom.us/j/62116122970?pwd=lStKbUlbkGbPghncW9Dj3RW8tUmuAG.1
Abstract:
At the dawn of general relativity's golden age in the 1950s, Irish
mathematician and physicist John Synge proposed to reduce spatial
concepts to temporal concepts. Synge argued that the structure of the
spacetime metric allows one to define length in terms of time, a
reduction of chronogeometry to what he calls pure chronometry. Synge's
arresting proposal nevertheless has two problems. First, he retains an
inadequate operationalist definition of durations in terms of "standard
clocks." Second, his technical argument only defines infinitesimal
length in terms of infinitesimal durations. In light of these
criticisms, I defend a more moderate version of Synge's thesis and
sketch a mathematical argument to establish it.
For more information on "Physics meets Philosophy", see
https://sites.google.com/view/physphilvienna
Best wishes
Sebastian