Cover Image
QR Code

Maxwell Gravitation.

This article gives an explicit presentation of Newtonian gravitation on the backdrop of Maxwell space-time, giving a sense in which acceleration is relative in gravitational theory. However, caution is needed: assessing whether this is a robust or interesting sense of the relativity of acceleration...

Full description

Published in:Philosophy of Science Vol. 85; no. 2; pp. 249 - 271
Main Author: Dewar, Neil
Format: Article
Published: Cambridge University Press Apr2018
Subjects:
Newton's law of gravitation
Quantum mechanics
Particle physics
Quantum theory
Spacetime
Online Access:View this record in EBSCOhost
Summary:This article gives an explicit presentation of Newtonian gravitation on the backdrop of Maxwell space-time, giving a sense in which acceleration is relative in gravitational theory. However, caution is needed: assessing whether this is a robust or interesting sense of the relativity of acceleration depends on some subtle technical issues and on substantive philosophical questions over how to identify the space-time structure of a theory.