Everywhere and Everywhen Adventures in Physics and Philosophy

by Huggett, Nick

• ISBN13: 9780195379501
• ISBN10: 0195379500
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2010-02-03
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

Why does time pass and space does not? Are there just three dimensions? What is a quantum particle? Nick Huggett shows that philosophy -- armed with a power to analyze fundamental concepts and their relationship to the human experience -- has much to say about these profound questions about the universe. In Everywhere and Everywhen, Huggett charts a journey that peers into some of the oldest questions about the world, through some of the newest, such as: What shape is space? Does it have an edge? What is the difference between past and future? What is time in relativity? Is time travel possible? Are there other universes? Huggett shows that answers to these profound questions are not just reserved for physics, and that philosophy can not only address but help advance our view of our deepest questions about the universe, space, and time, and their implications for humanity. His lively, accessible introduction to these topics is suitable for a general reader with no previous exposure to these profound and exciting questions.

Author Biography

Nick Huggett is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Illinois Chicago.

Table of Contents

A Longish Introduction: The Problem of Change	p. 1
Melissus's Paradox	p. 2
What Is Change?	p. 3
Laws	p. 9
Spacetime Today	p. 14
Zeno's Paradoxes	p. 17
The Dichotomy Paradox	p. 18
'Supertasks'	p. 21
Zeno's Arrow Paradox	p. 27
The Paradox	p. 27
What Philosophy Can Teach Physics	p. 29
The Shape of Space I: Topology	p. 31
An End to Space?	p. 32
Neither Bounded Nor Infinite	p. 37
What Physics Can Teach Philosophy	p. 40
Beyond the Third Dimension?	p. 42
Multidimensional Life	p. 44
More Than Three Dimensions?	p. 47
Why Three Dimensions?	p. 51
The Force of Gravity and the Dimensions of Space	p. 51
Does Intelligent Life Take Three Dimensions?	p. 54
Is the Universe Made for Humans?	p. 56
The Megaverse	p. 58
Philosophy in Physics	p. 62
The Shape of Space II: Curved Space?	p. 64
Mathematical Certainty	p. 64
Life in Non-Euclidean Geometry	p. 66
What Kind of Knowledge Is Geometry?	p. 71
Looking for Geometry	p. 75
Measuring the Geometry of Space?	p. 75
The 'Geometry' of Poincaré's Space	p. 79
How to Disproved a Definition	p. 81
Experiencing Space	p. 84
Where Is Geometry?	p. 86
What Is Space?	p. 89
Space=Matter	p. 90
Relational Space	p. 92
Absolute Space	p. 94
Relational Space Redux	p. 98
What Physics and Philosophy Can Teach Each Other	p. 100
Time	p. 103
Time versus Space	p. 103
Nowism	p. 106
A Moving Now?	p. 108
McTaggart's Argument	p. 110
Passing Time in a Block Universe	p. 112
Time and Tralfamadore	p. 116
The Mind's Worldline	p. 117
Experience of Space versus Time	p. 119
Another Arrow	p. 122
Physics and the Philosophy of Perception	p. 123
Time Travel	p. 126
What Is Time Travel?	p. 126
Is Time Travel Possible?	p. 128
The Problem with Time Travel	p. 129
Possible and Impossible Time Travel	p. 131
The Philosophy and Physics of Time Travel	p. 135
Why Can't I Stop My Younger Self from Time Traveling?	p. 138
Physics Might Stop Meà,	p. 138
àand If Not, Logic Will	p. 139
My Precise Physical State Stops Me	p. 141
Living in a Physical Universe	p. 146
Spacetime and the Theory of Relativity	p. 150
Photons and Bullets	p. 151
Convention	p. 154
Relativity-When Is Now?	p. 155
Relativistic Spacetime	p. 158
Relativity of Length	p. 161
Relativity of Time	p. 164
Time in Relativity	p. 168
The Twins	p. 168
General Relativity	p. 171
Time versus Space Yet Again	p. 172
Einstein's Revolution in Philosophy	p. 177
Hands and Mirrors	p. 179
Is Handedness Intrinsic or Extrinsic?	p. 179
The 'Fitting' Account	p. 182
Kant's Argument Against the Fitting Account	p. 185
Looking Left and Right	p. 188
Mirrors	p. 190
Orientability	p. 192
Identity	p. 194
Particle Statistics	p. 195
Schrödinger's Counting Games	p. 197
Quarticles	p. 204
New Counting Games	p. 204
Hookon Identity	p. 208
Indistinguishable Quarticles?	p. 209
Quanta as Quarticles	p. 210
Where Next?	p. 213
Index	p. 215
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