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Chris Smeenk [30]Christopher Smeenk [2]
  1. Philosophy of Cosmology.Chris Smeenk - 2013 - In Robert Batterman (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Physics. Oxford University Press USA. pp. 607-652.
    This chapter addresses philosophical questions raised in contemporary work on cosmology. It provides an overview of the Standard Model for cosmology and argues that its deficiency in addressing theories regarding the very early universe can be resolved by introducing a dynamical phase of evolution that eliminates the need for a special initial state. The chapter also discusses recent hypotheses about dark matter and energy, issues that it relates to philosophical debates about underdetermination.
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  2. Time travel and time machines.Chris Smeenk & Christian Wuthrich - 2011 - In Craig Callender (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Time. Oxford University Press. pp. 577-630.
    This paper is an enquiry into the logical, metaphysical, and physical possibility of time travel understood in the sense of the existence of closed worldlines that can be traced out by physical objects. We argue that none of the purported paradoxes rule out time travel either on grounds of logic or metaphysics. More relevantly, modern spacetime theories such as general relativity seem to permit models that feature closed worldlines. We discuss, in the context of Gödel's infamous argument for the ideality (...)
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  3. Λ and the limits of effective field theory.Adam Koberinski & Chris Smeenk - forthcoming - Philosophy of Science.
    The cosmological constant problem stems from treating quantum field theory and general relativity as an effective field theory. We argue that the problem is a reductio ad absurdum, and that one should reject the assumption that general relativity can generically be treated as an EFT. This marks a failure of naturalness, and an internal signal that EFT methods do not apply in all spacetime domains. We then take an external view, showing that the assumptions for using EFTs are violated in (...)
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  4. Do the Laws of Physics Forbid the Operation of Time Machines?John Earman, Chris Smeenk & Christian Wüthrich - 2009 - Synthese 169 (1):91 - 124.
    We address the question of whether it is possible to operate a time machine by manipulating matter and energy so as to manufacture closed timelike curves. This question has received a great deal of attention in the physics literature, with attempts to prove no- go theorems based on classical general relativity and various hybrid theories serving as steps along the way towards quantum gravity. Despite the effort put into these no-go theorems, there is no widely accepted definition of a time (...)
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  5. Predictability crisis in early universe cosmology.Chris Smeenk - 2014 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part B: Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics 46 (PA):122-133.
    Inflationary cosmology has been widely accepted due to its successful predictions: for a “generic” initial state, inflation produces a homogeneous, flat, bubble with an appropriate spectrum of density perturbations. However, the discovery that inflation is “generically eternal,” leading to a vast multiverse of inflationary bubbles with different low-energy physics, threatens to undermine this account. There is a “predictability crisis” in eternal inflation, because extracting predictions apparently requires a well-defined measure over the multiverse. This has led to discussions of anthropic predictions (...)
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  6. The Elusive Higgs Mechanism.Chris Smeenk - 2006 - Philosophy of Science 73 (5):487-499.
    The Higgs mechanism is an essential but elusive component of the Standard Model of particle physics. Without it Yang‐Mills gauge theories would have been little more than a warm‐up exercise in the attempt to quantize gravity rather than serving as the basis for the Standard Model. This article focuses on two problems related to the Higgs mechanism clearly posed in Earman’s recent papers (Earman 2003, 2004a, 2004b): what is the gauge‐invariant content of the Higgs mechanism, and what does it mean (...)
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  7. Cotes’ Queries: Newton’s Empiricism and Conceptions of Matter.Zvi Biener & Chris Smeenk - 2012 - In Zvi Biener & Chris Smeenk (eds.), Cotes’ Queries: Newton’s Empiricism and Conceptions of Matter. Cambridge: pp. 105-137.
    We argue that a conflict between two conceptions of “quantity of matter” employed in a corollary to proposition 6 of Book III of the Principia illustrates a deeper conflict between Newton’s view of the nature of extended bodies and the concept of mass appropriate for the theoretical framework of the Principia. We trace Newton’s failure to recognize the conflict to the fact that he allowed for the justification of natural philosophical claims by two types of a posteriori, empiricist methodologies. Newton's (...)
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  8. Einstein's Role in the Creation of Relativistic Cosmology.Chris Smeenk - 2014 - In Michel Janssen & Christoph Lehner (eds.), The Cambridge Companion to Einstein. Cambridge University Press. pp. 228-269.
    This volume is the first systematic presentation of the work of Albert Einstein, comprising fourteen essays by leading historians and philosophers of science that introduce readers to his work. Following an introduction that places Einstein's work in the context of his life and times, the book opens with essays on the papers of Einstein's 'miracle year', 1905, covering Brownian motion, light quanta, and special relativity, as well as his contributions to early quantum theory and the opposition to his light quantum (...)
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  9. (1 other version)Time in Cosmology.Chris Smeenk - 2013 - In Adrian Bardon & Heather Dyke (eds.), The Blackwell Companion to the Philosophy of Time. Wiley-Blackwell. pp. 201-219.
    This essay aims to provide a self-contained introduction to time in relativistic cosmology that clarifies both how questions about the nature of time should be posed in this setting and the extent to which they have been or can be answered empirically. The first section below recounts the loss of Newtonian absolute time with the advent of special and general relativity, and the partial recovery of absolute time in the form of cosmic time in some cosmological models. Section II considers (...)
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  10. False Vacuum: Early Universe Cosmology and the Development of Inflation.Chris Smeenk - 2005 - In Eisenstaedt Jean & Knox A. J. (eds.), The Universe of General Relativity. Birkhauser. pp. 223-257.
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  11.  85
    GR as a classical spin-2 theory?Niels Linnemann, Chris Smeenk & Mark Robert Baker - forthcoming - Philosophy of Science.
    The self-interaction spin-2 approach to GR has been extremely influential in the particle physics community. Leaving no doubt regarding its heuristic value, we argue that any view of the metric field of GR as nothing but a stand-in for a self-coupling field in at spacetime runs into a dilemma: either the view is physically incomplete in so far as it requires recourse to GR after all, or it leads to an absurd multiplication of alternative viewpoints on GR rendering any understanding (...)
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  12.  70
    Inflation and the Origins of Structure.Chris Smeenk - 2018 - In David E. Rowe, Tilman Sauer & Scott A. Walter (eds.), Beyond Einstein: Perspectives on Geometry, Gravitation, and Cosmology in the Twentieth Century. New York, USA: Springer New York. pp. 205-241.
    Guth provided a persuasive rationale for inflationary cosmology based on its ability to solve fine-tuning problems of big bang cosmology. Yet one of the most important consequences of inflation was only widely recognized a few years later: inflation provides a mechanism for generating small departures from uniformity, needed to seed formation of subsequent structures, by “freezing out” vacuum fluctuations to form classical density perturbations. This paper recounts the historical development of this aspect of inflation and puts it in context of (...)
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  13.  97
    Trouble with Hubble: Status of the Big Bang Models.Chris Smeenk - 2022 - Philosophy of Science 89 (5):1265-1274.
    Cosmologists take the $\Lambda$CDM model to be a permanent contribution to our knowledge of the universe, based on the success of precision cosmology. Consistent, independent determinations of the parameters in this model encourage physicists to take it seriously. This stance incurs an obligation to resolve any discrepancies by reanalyzing measurements or adding further complexity. Recent observations in cosmology indicate a tension between “local” and “global” determinations of the Hubble constant. Here I argue that this tension illustrates one of the benefits (...)
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  14.  77
    Validating the Universe in a Box.Chris Smeenk & Sarah C. Gallagher - 2020 - Philosophy of Science 87 (5):1221-1233.
    Computer simulations of the formation and evolution of large-scale structure in the universe are integral to the enterprise of modern cosmology. Establishing the reliability of these simulations has been extremely challenging, primarily because of epistemic opacity. In this setting, robustness analysis defined by requiring converging outputs from a diverse ensemble of simulations is insufficient to determine simulation validity. We propose an alternative path of structured code validation that applies eliminative reasoning to isolate and reduce possible sources of error, a potential (...)
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  15. Philosophy of the Physical Sciences.Chris Smeenk & Hoefer Carl - 2014 - In Paul Humphreys (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Science. New York, NY, USA: Oxford University Press.
    The authors survey some debates about the nature and structure of physical theories and about the connections between our physical theories and naturalized metaphysics. The discussion is organized around an “ideal view” of physical theories and criticisms that can be raised against it. This view includes controversial commitments regarding the best analysis of physical modalities and intertheory relations. The authors consider the case in favor of taking laws as the primary modal notion, discussing objections related to alleged violations of the (...)
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  16. Newton's Principia.Chris Smeenk & Eric Schliesser - 2013 - In Jed Z. Buchwald & Robert Fox (eds.), The Oxford handbook of the history of physics. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. pp. 109-165.
    The Oxford Handbook of the History of Physics brings together cutting-edge writing by more than twenty leading authorities on the history of physics from the seventeenth century to the present day. By presenting a wide diversity of studies in a single volume, it provides authoritative introductions to scholarly contributions that have tended to be dispersed in journals and books not easily accessible to the general reader. While the core thread remains the theories and experimental practices of physics, the Handbook contains (...)
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  17. Mie's Theories of Matter and Gravitation.Chris Smeenk - 2007 - In Jürgen Renn (ed.), The Genesis of General Relativity. Springer. pp. 1543-1553.
    Unifying physics by describing a variety of interactions – or even all interactions – within a common framework has long been an alluring goal for physicists. One of the most ambitious attempts at unification was made in the 1910s by Gustav Mie. Mie aimed to derive electromagnetism, gravitation, and aspects of the emerging quantum theory from a single variational principle and a well-chosen Lagrangian. Mie’s main innovation was to consider nonlinear field equations to allow for stable particle-like solutions (now called (...)
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  18.  74
    Philosophical geometers and geometrical philosophers.Christopher Smeenk - 2016 - In Geoffrey Gorham (ed.), The Language of Nature: Reassessing the Mathematization of Natural Philosophy in the Seventeenth Century. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
    Newton frequently characterized his methodology as distinctive and capable of achieving greater evidential support than that of his contemporaries, due to its mathematical character. Newton's pronouncements reflect a striking position regarding the role of mathematics in natural philosophy. We can give an initial characterization of his position by considering two questions central to seventeenth century debates about the applicability of mathematics. First, how are we to understand the distinctive universality and necessity of mathematical reasoning? One common way to preserve the (...)
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  19.  55
    What’s in a Survey? Simulation-Induced Selection Effects in Astronomy.Sarah C. Gallagher & Chris Smeenk - 2023 - In Nora Mills Boyd, Siska De Baerdemaeker, Kevin Heng & Vera Matarese (eds.), Philosophy of Astrophysics: Stars, Simulations, and the Struggle to Determine What is Out There. Springer Verlag. pp. 207819642-222831658.
    Observational astronomy is plagued with selection effects that must be taken into account when interpreting data from astronomical surveys. Because of the physical limitations of observing time and instrument sensitivity, datasets are rarely complete. However, determining specifically what is missing from any sample is not always straightforward. For example, there are always more faint objects (such as galaxies) than bright ones in any brightness-limited sample, but faint objects may not be of the same kind as bright ones. Assuming they are (...)
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  20. Philosophical Geometers and Geometrical Philosophers.Chris Smeenk - 2016 - In Geoffrey Gorham (ed.), The Language of Nature: Reassessing the Mathematization of Natural Philosophy in the Seventeenth Century. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. pp. 308-338.
    Galileo’s dictum that the book of nature “is written in the language of mathematics” is emblematic of the accepted view that the scientific revolution hinged on the conceptual and methodological integration of mathematics and natural philosophy. Although the mathematization of nature is a distinctive and crucial feature of the emergence of modern science in the seventeenth century, this volume shows that it was a far more complex, contested, and context-dependent phenomenon than the received historiography has indicated, and that philosophical controversies (...)
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  21. Pendulums, Pedagogy, and Matter: Lessons from the Editing of Newton's Principia.Zvi Biener & Chris Smeenk - 2004 - Science & Education 13 (4-5):309-320.
    Teaching Newtonian physics involves the replacement of students’ ideas about physical situations with precise concepts appropriate for mathematical applications. This paper focuses on the concepts of ‘matter’ and ‘mass’. We suggest that students, like some pre-Newtonian scientists we examine, use these terms in a way that conflicts with their Newtonian meaning. Specifically, ‘matter’ and ‘mass’ indicate to them the sorts of things that are tangible, bulky, and take up space. In Newtonian mechanics, however, the terms are defined by Newton’s Second (...)
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  22. Determinism and General Relativity.Chris Smeenk & Christian Wüthrich - 2021 - Philosophy of Science 88 (4):638-664.
    We investigate the fate of determinism in general relativity, comparing the philosopher’s account with the physicist’s well-posed initial value formulations. The fate of determinism is interwoven with the question of what it is for a spacetime to be ‘physically reasonable’. A central concern is the status of global hyperbolicity, a putatively necessary condition for determinism in GR. While global hyperbolicity may fail to be true of all physically reasonable models, we analyze whether global hyperbolicity should be imposed by fiat; established (...)
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  23. Some reflections on the structure of cosmological knowledge.Chris Smeenk - 2020 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part B: Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics 71:220-231.
    Stein has characterized one of the central problems in accounting for our knowledge in physics as that of getting the laboratory, or observatory, inside the theory -- that is, of understanding how the mathematical structures of fundamental physical theories have empirical content. He has argued that physicists respond to this problem by giving schematic representations of observers and experiments. In addition, Stein emphasizes the importance of regarding knowledge as an enterprise, with current theories providing guidance for future inquiry. I will (...)
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  24. Theory, Evidence, Data: Themes from George E. Smith.Marius Stan & Christopher Smeenk - 2023 - Springer.
    A volume of papers inspired by the work of George E. Smith on confirmation and evidence in advanced science—from Newton's gravitation theory to the physics of molecules.
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  25. Review of Geometric Possibility. [REVIEW]Chris Smeenk - 2013 - Philosophia Mathematica 21 (3):416-421.
    Review of Geometric Possibility (2011), by Gordon Belot. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. x + 219 pp.
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  26. Jed Z. Buchwald and Mordechai Feingold. Newton and the Origin of Civilization. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2013. Pp. 544, index. $49.50. [REVIEW]Chris Smeenk - 2014 - Hopos: The Journal of the International Society for the History of Philosophy of Science 4 (2):383-387.
    Review of Newton and the Origin of Civilization, by Jed Z. Buchwald and Mordechai Feingold.Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2013. Pp. 544, index. $49.50.
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  27. Review of Kant’s Construction of NatureMichael Friedman, Kant’s Construction of Nature: A Reading of the Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press , 646 pp., $37.99. [REVIEW]Chris Smeenk - 2015 - Philosophy of Science 82 (4):718-726.
    Review of Michael Friedman, Kant’s Construction of Nature: A Reading of the Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (2015), 646 pp., $37.99 (paper).
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  28. Gauge Pressure. [REVIEW]Dean Rickles, Chris Smeenk, Holger Lyre & Richard Healey - 2009 - Metascience 18 (1):5-41.
    Symposium review of Richard Healey, Gauging What’s Real: The Conceptual Foundations of Contemporary Gauge Theories. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007. Pp. 297. $99.00 HB.
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  29. Tools without Theories. [REVIEW]Chris Smeenk - 2006 - Metascience 15 (2):333-337.
    Review of Drawing Theories Apart: The Dispersion of Feynman Diagrams in Postwar Physics, by David Kaiser. University of Chicago Press. 2005.
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  30. Let's Do Black Holes and Time Warps Again: The Future of Spacetime. [REVIEW]Chris Smeenk - 2003 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part B: Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics 34 (4):680-683.
    Book Review of The Future of Spacetime, by Stephen Hawking et al.
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