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Conventionality of simultaneity and reality
Abstract
An important epistemological lesson can be learned from the impossibility to determine the one-way velocity of light and the immediate implication that simultaneity is conventional. The vicious circle -- to determine whether two distant events are simultaneous we need to know the one-way velocity of light between them, but to determine the one-way velocity of light we need to know that the two events are simultaneous -- is an indication of the need for a profound change of our view on reality.Author's Profile
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Citations of this work
Eternity and time in science: what role do theories of relativity play in the formation of a coherent model of eternity.F. Lawson - 2013 - Dissertation, University of London
References found in this work
On the electrodynamics of moving bodies.Albert Einstein - 1920 - In The Principle of Relativity. [Calcutta]: Dover Publications. pp. 35-65.
Causal theories of time and the conventionality of simultaneity.David Malament - 1977 - Noûs 11 (3):293-300.
Special relativity without one-way velocity assumptions: Part I.John A. Winnie - 1970 - Philosophy of Science 37 (1):81-99.
Concepts of simultaneity: from antiquity to Einstein and beyond.Max Jammer - 2006 - Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins University Press.
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