The Nature of a Constant of Nature: The Case of G.
Physics presents us with a symphony of natural constants: , ℏ , , and so forth. Up to this point, constants have received comparatively little philosophical attention. In this article, I provide an account of dimensionful constants, in particular the gravitational constant. I propose that they repre...
| Publicado en: | Philosophy of Science Vol. 90; no. 4; pp. 797 - 817 |
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| Autor principal: | |
| Formato: | Artículo |
| Publicado: |
Cambridge University Press
Oct2023
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| Materias: | |
| Acceso en línea: | Ver este registro en EBSCOhost |
| Sumario: | Physics presents us with a symphony of natural constants: , ℏ , , and so forth. Up to this point, constants have received comparatively little philosophical attention. In this article, I provide an account of dimensionful constants, in particular the gravitational constant. I propose that they represent interquantity structure in the form of relations between quantities with different dimensions. I use this account of to settle a debate over whether mass scalings are symmetries of Newtonian gravitation. I argue that they are not, but only if we interpret mass anti-quidditistically. This is analogous to anti-haecceitism in the presence of spacetime symmetries. |
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