Whitehead, Einstein, et la relativité: l'uniformité de l'espace-temps
I Alfred North Whitehead had philosophical objections against Einstein's Theory of Relativity, and for that reason he produced a different theory, published in his The Principle of Relativity, with Applications to Physical Science (1922). II. In the Preface of this book, Whitehead states clearl...
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | French |
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Ed. Pontificia Univ. Gregoriana
1980
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| In: |
Gregorianum
Year: 1980, Volume: 61, Issue: 1, Pages: 77-95 |
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Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
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| 520 | |a I Alfred North Whitehead had philosophical objections against Einstein's Theory of Relativity, and for that reason he produced a different theory, published in his The Principle of Relativity, with Applications to Physical Science (1922). II. In the Preface of this book, Whitehead states clearly where he disagrees with Einstein: at the basis of our experience of nature lies the uniformity of spatio-temporal relations, and it is therefore impossible to accept a space-time with non-uniform curvature, as Einstein does. In the first part of the book Whitehead elaborates the general, mainly philosophical principles of his theory, while the physical theory itself is dealt with in the second part. The connexion between these two parts is rather surprising: Whitehead admits that, starting from his own philosophical doctrine, he could eventually also adopt Einstein's formulae; this seems to demand at least a re-interpretation of those formulae. III. Whitehead's physical theory, leading to the same results as Einstein's for the traditional tests of General Relativity Theory, was until 1960 the strongest competitor of Einstein's formalism; since that time it has lost most of its importance and according to some authors it has even been refuted. But the discussion among physicists has not thrown much light on the philosophical foundations. IV. Why does Whitehead think that space-time must be uniform? First, because measurement itself presupposes that uniformity. More explicitly: measurement presupposes congruence, congruence is based on the notion of repetition, and repetition embodies the principle of uniformity. This argument is developed by Whitehead in passages of several publications, and illustrated by various examples. On the other hand, Whithead shows that in our daily observations we really have an experience of congruence, i.e. of the uniformity of spatio-temporal relations; the fundamental concept here is 'significance'. As a consequence of his doctrine on the uniformity of space-time, Whitehead maintains the distinction between geometry and physics, and he opposes the theses of conventionalism and of the later operationalism. V. Spread through Whitehead's works we find passages where his position on the uniformity of space-time is less absolute. In Process and Reality (1929) it becomes clear that this uniformity does not belong to metaphysics, i.e. that it does not necessarily hold in all cosmic epochs. In section VI of the article some misunderstandings of Whitehead's doctrine are mentioned, and then the author attempts an evaluation of this doctrine. He thinks Whitehead's arguments are valid but they do not demonstrate a perfect uniformity, i.e. a uniformity without exceptions even at the scale of the microcosmos and of very large distances in space-time. This restriction is already vaguely suggested by Whitehead himself. | ||
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