Philosophy of Physics Seminar (Thursday - Week 8, HT24)
Thursday 7 March, 3pm
Lecture Room, Radcliffe Humanities
James Read (Oxford): 'The Non-Relativistic Geometric Trinity of Gravity'
Three topics by now well-established in the canon of the philosophy of space and time are: (i) the non-relativistic limit, (ii) geometrisation and recovery in non-relativistic gravity, and (iii) Maxwell gravitation. In addition, other topics are becoming increasing well-known to philosophers of space and time---e.g., the existence of a 'geometric trinity' of theories of relativistic gravity (of which GR is but one node). Thus far, however, these topics have remained largely isolated from one another. In this talk, I'll connect the dots, by (a) taking the non relativistic limit of the geometric trinity, thereby constructing a novel non-relativistic geometric trinity of gravity which subsumes known geometrisation/recovery results, (b) thinking about the common core of the relativistic trinity as opposed to the non-relativistic trinity---in the former case, this turns out to be GR itself, but in the latter case it is precisely Maxwell gravity, which is distinct from the original three 'nodes' of the non-relativistic trinity. Overall, this work not only helps us to understand much better the 'space of spacetime theories', but also raises many interesting philosophical questions for future exploration.
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