Philosophical concepts in physics: the historical relation between philosophy and scientific theories

Abstract

Preface Part I. The Scientific Enterprise: 1. Ways of knowing 2. Aristotle and Francis Bacon 3. Science and metaphysics Part II. Ancient and Modern Models of the Universe: 4. Observational astronomy and the Ptolemaic model 5. The Copernican model and Kepler's laws 6. Galileo on motion Part III. The Newtonian Universe: 7. Newton's Principia 8. Newton's law of universal gravitation 9. Some old questions revisited Part IV. A Perspective: 10. Galileo's Letter to the Grand Duchess 11. An overarching Newtonian framework 12. A view of the world based on science: determinism Part V. Mechanical Versus Electrodynamical World Views: 13. Models of the aether 14. Maxwell's theory 15. The Kaufmann experiments Part VI. The Theory of Relativity: 16. The background to and essentials of special relativity 17. Further logical consequences of Einstein's postulates 18. General relativity and the expanding universe Part VII. The Quantum World and the Completeness of Quantum Mechanics: 19. The road to quantum mechanics 20. 'Copenhage' quantum mechanics 21. Is quantum mechanics complete? Part VIII. Some Philosophical Lessons from Quantum Mechanics: 22. The EPR paper and Bell's theorem 23. An alternative version of quantum mechanics 24. An essential role for historical contingency? Part IX. A Retrospective: 25. The goals of science and the status of its knowledge Notes General references Bibliography Author index Subject index.

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