Conservation, inertia, and spacetime geometry

Q1 Arts and Humanities

Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics Pub Date : 2019-08-01 DOI:10.1016/j.shpsb.2017.09.007

James Owen Weatherall

引用次数: 20

Abstract

As Harvey Brown emphasizes in his book Physical Relativity, inertial motion in general relativity is best understood as a theorem, and not a postulate. Here I discuss the status of the “conservation condition”, which states that the energy-momentum tensor associated with non-interacting matter is covariantly divergence-free, in connection with such theorems. I argue that the conservation condition is best understood as a consequence of the differential equations governing the evolution of matter in general relativity and many other theories. I conclude by discussing what it means to posit a certain spacetime geometry and the relationship between that geometry and the dynamical properties of matter.

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守恒，惯性和时空几何

正如哈维·布朗在他的《物理相对论》一书中强调的那样，广义相对论中的惯性运动最好被理解为一个定理，而不是一个假设。在这里，我讨论了“守恒条件”的状态，它表明与非相互作用物质相关的能量动量张量是协变无散度的，与这些定理有关。我认为，守恒条件最好被理解为广义相对论和许多其他理论中控制物质演化的微分方程的结果。最后，我将讨论假设某种时空几何以及该几何与物质动力学特性之间的关系意味着什么。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics 物理-科学史与科学哲学

自引率

0.00%

发文量

审稿时长

13.3 weeks

期刊介绍： Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics is devoted to all aspects of the history and philosophy of modern physics broadly understood, including physical aspects of astronomy, chemistry and other non-biological sciences. The primary focus is on physics from the mid/late-nineteenth century to the present, the period of emergence of the kind of theoretical physics that has come to dominate the exact sciences in the twentieth century. The journal is internationally oriented with contributions from a wide range of perspectives. In addition to purely historical or philosophical papers, the editors particularly encourage papers that combine these two disciplines. The editors are also keen to publish papers of interest to physicists, as well as specialists in history and philosophy of physics.