Coincidence and reproducibility in the EHT black hole experiment.
This paper discusses some philosophical aspects related to the recent publication of the experimental results of the 2017 black hole experiment, namely the first image of the supermassive black hole at the center of galaxy M87. In this paper I present a philosophical analysis of the 2017 Event Horiz...
| Publicado en: | Studies in History & Philosophy of Science Part A Vol. 85; pp. 63 - 79 |
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| Formato: | Artículo |
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Elsevier B.V.
Feb2021
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| Acceso en línea: | Ver este registro en EBSCOhost |
| fields | @attributes: recordID: 1 pdfLink: plink: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=hlh&AN=150170815&site=ehost-live header: @attributes: shortDbName: hlh uiTerm: 150170815 longDbName: Humanities International Complete uiTag: AN controlInfo: bkinfo: jinfo: jid: 00393681 HPS jtl: Studies in History & Philosophy of Science Part A issn: 00393681 maglogo: N pubinfo: dt: Feb2021 vid: 85 pid: 2410 pub: Elsevier B.V. artinfo: ui: 150170815 10.1016/j.shpsa.2020.09.007 ppf: 63 ppct: 16 formats: tig: atl: Coincidence and reproducibility in the EHT black hole experiment. aug: au: Weinstein, Galina affil: The Department of Philosophy, University of Haifa, 199 Aba Hushi Ave., Mount Carmel, 3498838, Haifa, Israel The Interdisciplinary Center (IDC), Kanfei Nesharim, Herzliya, 46150, Israel su: Black holes Coincidence Laboratories Mass measurement Machine learning sug: subj: Black holes Coincidence Laboratories Mass measurement Machine learning keyword: Black hole Computer simulation Event horizon telescope General relativity Philosophy of experimentation ab: This paper discusses some philosophical aspects related to the recent publication of the experimental results of the 2017 black hole experiment, namely the first image of the supermassive black hole at the center of galaxy M87. In this paper I present a philosophical analysis of the 2017 Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) black hole experiment. I first present Hacking's philosophy of experimentation. Hacking gives his taxonomy of elements of laboratory science and distinguishes a list of elements. I show that the EHT experiment conforms to major elements from Hacking's list. I then describe with the help of Galison's Philosophy of the Shadow how the EHT Collaboration created the famous black hole image. Galison outlines three stages for the reconstruction of the black hole image: Socio-Epistemology, Mechanical Objectivity, after which there is an additional Socio-Epistemology stage. I subsequently present my own interpretation of the reconstruction of the black hole image and I discuss model fitting to data. I suggest that the main method used by the EHT Collaboration to assure trust in the results of the EHT experiment is what philosophers call the Argument from Coincidence. I show that using this method for the above purpose is problematic. I present two versions of the Argument from Coincidence: Hacking's Coincidence and Cartwright's Reproducibility by which I analyse the EHT experiment. The same estimation of the mass of the black hole is reproduced in four different procedures. The EHT Collaboration concludes: the value we have converged upon is robust. I analyse the mass measurements of the black hole with the help of Cartwright's notion of robustness. I show that the EHT Collaboration construe Coincidence/Reproducibility as Technological Agnosticism and I contrast this interpretation with van Fraassen's scientific agnosticism. • First image of a black hole obtained by the Event Horizon Telescope. • A new type of experiment and Cartwright's interpretation of reproducibility. • The paper discusses Galison's philosophy, machine learning and computer simulation. • Hacking's elements of laboratory science and the argument from coincidence. • The EHT experiment and van Fraassen's empiricism. pubtype: Academic Journal doctype: Article src: R language: English refInfo: copyright: @attributes: flag: Y dt: @attributes: year: 2021 holdings: @attributes: islocal: N |
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