Lecture and Seminar

Spring 2018
Sissa (Trieste, Italy)
Conferences and Seminars

As the conferences and seminars are all on the same day, the structure of the course will be
as follows:

• Week 1: An introduction and reasons to study the Philosophy of Physics

• Weeks 2: The Conceptual Problems and the Philosophical Implications of Concepts of

Space and Time

• Weeks 3: The Notion of Symmetry in Physics. Evolution in its Meaning

A more detailed list of what we will cover in conferences and seminars (week by week) is
given below.

Since it is quite difficult to predict how much time we will have to spend on each issue, this
list represents the best possible scenario.
Conference Program

I.Week 1. Introduction

✓ First conference: Philosophical Preliminaries. Philosophy of Science (Contemporary

Age)

The relationship between philosophy and physics. The need for a philosophy of physics.
Summary of some relevant philosophical concepts.

✓ Second lecture: Relationship between Physics and Philosophy

The ‘classical’ view of the world and some experiments that challenged this vision. The new
phenomenos in physics moderns in the modern cosmology, relativity special and general and
quantum physics that need of vision philosophical.
Conference Program

II. Weeks 2. The Conceptual Problems and the Philosophical Implications of Concepts of Space and Time

✓ First Conference: Traditional Philosophical Problems of Space and Time

Historical background about the problem of space and time. Summary

✓ Second Lecture: The Debate between Newton and Leibniz

The cinematic solution of Leibniz vs the dynamic solution of Newton. The problem of the concept of space between Newtonians
and Leibnizians. Brief historical reconstruction. Summary

✓ Third Lecture: From Space and Time to Spacetime

Evolution in the concepts of space and time in Eisntein's physics. Philosophical problem found by Einstein. The conceptual
revolution and the change of paradigm given by the relativist theory

✓ Fourth Lecture: The Gravity and Curvature of Spacetime

The conceptual revolution of spacetime and the consequences for modern physics as a philosophical problem. The curvature of
spacetime as a consequence or cause of gravity? a problem for the philosophy of physics
Conference Program

III. Weeks 3. Evolution of the Notion of Symmetry in Physics

✓ First Conference: Absence of the Term in the Ancients

Absence of the term in the Greek world. The use of the notion of symmetry in the ancient world, from the Greeks to
the time of the Modern as principle and argument. Problem in the use and meaning of the notion. First conceptual
revolution of the concept of symmetry

✓ Second Lecture: Symmetry as a Relation of Equivalence: Meaning in Medieval and Modern

Times

The problem of space and time in Newton and Leibniz as a foundation for evolution in the meaning of symmetry
within physics and its relation to relations of order. Relation and influence of Jean Buridan, Galileo and Eudoxos
Cnido in the consideration of Leibniz's cinematic solution to the problem of inertia and its consequences for the
symmetry of symmetry in physics

✓ Third Lecture: Symmetry and its Meaning and Use in Quantum and Relativistic Physics

The use of the notion of symmetry in contemporary physics as a principle. Noether's theorems and their relation to
the philosophical meaning of symmetry. The problem of the clarification in the relation between symmetry and laws
of conservation
Philosophical Preliminaries. Relationship between Physics and
Philosophy
Preliminaries. Schema 1
• Anaxímenes,
Anaxágoras First to try to
• Anaximandro
• Pitágoras describe nature
Presocráticos • Heráclito through reason
• Parménides
• Demócrito
• Leucipo

Philosophy Metaphysics
• Aristoteles

Classic
distinguishes
between
science and
Greece philosophy Science Physics,
Astronomy,
Biology

• Philosophy Human or
Contemporar Social
is divided
y Age into
Science
 Philosophy of Science. Contemporary Age
Schema 2

Rationalism
Do not depend on
experimentation
Reason or Mathematics, to describe the
Pure Logic world
Rationality What is the
Philosophy two role of
of Science postures philosophy
Experience They use specific in both
or Physics positions?
methods to move
Empiricism Chemistry from experimental
Biology data to more general
hypotheses and
Empiricism theories
Philosophy of Science. Contemporary Age
Schema 3

clarify conceptual
Rationalism relationships
Role of The natural sciences (physics,
Philosophy etc.…) are supported by
in both observational data and in turn
positions describe and
Empiricis supported by observational
justify the
m support
methods that
science uses

Reason and experimentation are

not distant
Philosophy of Science. Contemporary Age
Schema 4

Consequence: the
Results of Contemporary causal regressive New Criticism of
Physics entails chain of reasoning
Knowledge
philosophical consequences seems to stop

Questions arise Consequence

Bing Bang: New Theory of
Modern about causality in
Singularity finite Space and
Cosmolog astronomical scale Time
in the time Conceptual
y Criticizes the revolution
How can we
determine if two evidential basis
Theory of events happen or not of our
Relativity Simultaneity theoretical
at the same time?
inferences Consequenc
e
Any events can find In quantum theory,
There is no
explication if would it is not correct
Quantum Causality universal
associate with any cause
Theory before condition

Measurement Process Integration of Philosophy to

(Principle of uncertainty) Physical Theorization
Traditional Philosophical Problems of Space and Time. The Debate
between Newton and Leibniz. From Space and Time to Spacetime
In Aristotelian physics, there is a notion of Euclidean 3-space 𝔼3 to
represent physical space, and the points of this space retain their identity
from one moment to the next. This is because the state of rest is dynamically
preferred, in the Aristotelian scheme, from all other states of motion.

We take the attitude that a particular spatial point, at one moment of time, is
the same spatial point, at a later moment of time, if a particle situated at that
point remains at rest from one moment to the next. Our picture of reality is
like the screen in a cinema theatre, where a particular point on the screen
retains its identity no matter what kinds of vigorous movement might be
projected upon it.
Time, also, is represented as a Euclidean space, but as a rather trivial one,
namely the 1-dimensional space 𝔼1 . Thus, we think of time, as well as
physical space, as being a ‘Euclidean geometry’, rather than as being just a
copy of the real line R. This is because R has a preferred element 0, which
would represent the ‘zero’ of time, whereas in our ‘Aristotelian’ dynamical
view, there is to be no preferred origin.

Had there been a preferred ‘origin of time’, the dynamical laws could be
envisaged as changing when time proceeds away from that preferred origin.
With no preferred origin, the laws must remain the same for all time,
because there is no preferred time parameter which these laws can depend
upon.
 In Euclidean geometry, whether 1-dimensional or 3-dimensional, there is a notion of distance. In
the 3-dimensional spatial case, this is to be ordinary Euclidean distance (measured in metres, or
feet, say); in the 1-dimensional case, this distance is the ordinary time interval (measured, say, in
seconds).

In Aristotelian physics and, in fact, in the subsequent dynamic scheme (s)

of Galileo and Newton, there is an absolute notion of temporal simultaneity.

Therefore, it has an absolute meaning to say, according to such dynamics schemas, that the time here, at this
very moment, while we are here in this seminar, is "at the same time" that an event that takes place in the
Andromeda galaxy (for example, the explosion of a supernova star).

To go back to our analogy of the cinema screen, we can ask if two projected images, which occur in two widely
separated places on the screen, They are taking place simultaneously or not. The answer here is clear.
 What this tells us is that, in our Aristotelian scheme, it is appropriate to
think of spacetime as simply the product

1 3
𝒜 =𝔼 ×𝔼
This is simply the space of pairs (t, x), where t is an element of E1, a ‘time’, and x is an element of E3, a
‘point in space’. For two different points of E1 x E3, say (t, x) and (t’, x’)—i.e. two different events—we
have a well-defined notion of their spatial separation, namely the distance between the points x and x’
of E3, and we also have a well-defined notion of their time difference, namely the separation between t
and t’ as measured in E1.

In particular, we know whether or not two events occur at the same place (vanishing of
spatial displacement) and whether or not they take place at the same time (vanishing of time
difference).
Aristotelian Spacetime
Let's try to incorporate the principle of Galilean relativity in our space-time image

Shut yourself up with some friend in the main cabin below

decks on some
large ship, and have with you some flies, butterflies, and
other small flying
animals . . . hang up a bottle that empties drop by drop
into a wide vessel
Galileo beneath it . . . have the ship proceed with any speed you
(1638) like, so long as the
motion is uniform and not fluctuating this way and that. . . .
The droplets will
fall . . . into the vessel beneath without dropping toward
the stern, although
while the drops are in the air the ship runs many spans . . .
the butterflies and
flies will continue their flights indifferently toward every
side, nor will it ever
happen that they are concentrated toward the stern, as if
tired out from
keeping up with the course of the ship
 What Galileo teaches us is that the dynamical laws are precisely the same when referred to any
uniformly moving frame.

There is nothing to distinguish the physics of the state of rest from that of uniform motion.

In terms of what has been said above, what this tells us is that there is no dynamical meaning to saying
that a particular point in space is, or is not, the same point as some chosen point in space at a later time.

There is no meaning to be attached to the notion that any particular point in space a minute from now is
to be judged as the same point in space as the one that I have chosen.
In Galilean dynamics, we do not have just one Euclidean 3-space E3, as an arena for the actions of the
physical world evolving with time, we have a different E3 for each moment in time, with no natural
identification between these various E3s.
Time

Space
It may seem alarming that our very notion of physical space seems to be
of something that evaporates completely as one moment passes, and
reappears as a completely different space as the next moment arrives

Galilean spacetime G is not a product space E1 x E3, it is a fibre bundle

with base space E1 and fibre E3

Each spacetime event is naturally assigned a time, as a particular element of one

specific ‘clock space’ E1, but there is no natural assignment of a spatial location in
one specific ‘location space’ E3
Traditional Philosophical Problems of Space and Time. Schema 1

Problem of the Greeks Presocráticos How to know the world?

When "new" evidence First attempts to propose

appears, our beliefs are no theories
longer valid

They are between

Doubt of Perception
Critical Reflection particular truths versus
Our senses deceive us
general truths

Particular Truths

Beliefs
Individual Evidence
Traditional Philosophical Problems of Space and Time. Schema 2

Critical Reflection
Each proposition confronts the
Experience with the Real
Consequence

Propositions are part of a

general theoretical
structure that is Euclidean Geometry
confronted with
experience
✓ Exact
The propositions of Geometry can be
✓ Accurate
demonstrated starting from Axioms
✓ True

Each proposition contains: Scientific Revolution

Elements of Convention
Elements of Objectivity
Renaissance knowledge models
observational
Traditional Philosophical Problems of Space and Time. Schema 3

What is Space?

✓ Continent in the World Existing things in it

✓ Empty space "something" that expects to be filled by matter Plato (Timeo)
✓ "Place" Aristotle Conception movement is change of place

What is Time? Asymmetric Past  Present  Future

✓ Similar to the continent aspect of space

✓ Change is the measure of change and movement Aristotle Conception

Debate between Newton and Leibniz

THE DEBATE BETWEEN
NEWTON AND LEIBNIZ
 The Debate between Newton and Leibniz. Schema 4
Leibniz The World is constituted by Mónadas

Space and Time

Collection of all spatial ✓ They do not have

Collection of all temporal
relationships between things independent existence relationships between events
✓ They retain a crucial
place in the structure of
the World
No events = No relationships
No things = No relationships
Denies the existence
per se of space and
time

Spatial and temporal relationships as

a real component in the World

These two families of relationships comprise the reality

The Debate between Newton and Leibniz. Schema 5
Newton

Space and Time

Space as an attribute or
property "Something" more than a system of
spatial and temporal relationships
between objects and material
events
Divine Sensory
They are postulated theoretical
Problem between Inertial
elements whose existence must be
Movements versus Non-
presupposed to explain the
Inertial Movements
phenomena

Indistinction between Rest and Inertial Movement

FROM SPACE AND TIME TO
SPACETIME
From Space and Time to Spacetime. Schema 6
Nineteenth Century

Two Dimensions of Reality

Space Time
Described by
Euclidean
Geometry Material or Mental Events
Material Things

Three-dimensional Structure Continuous One-dimensional

How can we know these structures?

Philosophical Problem of Science

From Space and Time to Spacetime. Schema 7

Indistinction between Rest and Inertial Movement Newton versus Leibniz

Substantialist Relationship
How to determine the state of Rest with
Perspective Perspective
respect to Space itself?

Conceptual Revolution Einstein

about Space and Time

From Maxwell's Theory: the speed of light is defined