Einstein and Bohr Redefine Reality
Special and general relativity describe a wholly new world, yet they were assimilated by the scientific community as if they were extensions of 19th-century physics.
1. Relativity theory is not merely an improvement of Newtonian physics; it redefines the most fundamental terms of that physics and in the process it redefines reality.
2. Scientists behave as if theory change were a continuous process instead of discontinuously changing what we consider real.
3. The commonsense notion that the real is the changeless source and cause of experience is belied by the continual redefinition of “reality” as scientific knowledge evolves.
Heisenberg’s acausal matrix mechanics and Schrödinger’s causal-deterministic wave mechanics proved to be intertranslatable.
1. Here we have another echo of Fourier: theories whose equations match empirical experience but whose terms have no obvious correlation with “reality.”
2. Einstein and Bohr engaged in an epic, decades long argument over the explanatory adequacy of quantum theory.
3. What was at issue seems to have been different conceptions of the criteria of the intelligibility of experience.
4. The dispute illustrates the persistence of the hunger for
certainty and Truth within science against pragmatic.
Source credit: Steven Goldberg, philosopher of science
Special and general relativity describe a wholly new world, yet they were assimilated by the scientific community as if they were extensions of 19th-century physics.
1. Relativity theory is not merely an improvement of Newtonian physics; it redefines the most fundamental terms of that physics and in the process it redefines reality.
2. Scientists behave as if theory change were a continuous process instead of discontinuously changing what we consider real.
3. The commonsense notion that the real is the changeless source and cause of experience is belied by the continual redefinition of “reality” as scientific knowledge evolves.
Heisenberg’s acausal matrix mechanics and Schrödinger’s causal-deterministic wave mechanics proved to be intertranslatable.
1. Here we have another echo of Fourier: theories whose equations match empirical experience but whose terms have no obvious correlation with “reality.”
2. Einstein and Bohr engaged in an epic, decades long argument over the explanatory adequacy of quantum theory.
3. What was at issue seems to have been different conceptions of the criteria of the intelligibility of experience.
4. The dispute illustrates the persistence of the hunger for
certainty and Truth within science against pragmatic.
Source credit: Steven Goldberg, philosopher of science