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Reconsidering Experiments

Patton, Lydia (2011) Reconsidering Experiments. HOPOS, 1 (2). pp. 209-226.

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Abstract

Experiments may not reveal their full import at the time that they are performed. The scientists who perform them usually are testing a specific hypothesis and quite often have specific expectations limiting the possible inferences that can be drawn from the experiment. Nonetheless, as Hacking has said, experiments have lives of their own. Those lives do not end with the initial report of the results and consequences of the experiment. Going back and rethinking the consequences of the experiment in a new context, theoretical or empirical, has great merit as a strategy for investigation and for scientific problem analysis. I apply this analysis to the interplay between Fizeau’s classic optical experiments and the building of special relativity. Einstein’s understanding of the problems facing classical electrodynamics and optics, in part, was informed by Fizeau’s 1851 experiments. However, between 1851 and 1905, Fizeau’s experiments were duplicated and reinterpreted by a succession of scientists, including Hertz, Lorentz, and Michelson. Einstein’s analysis of the consequences of the experiments is tied closely to this theoretical and experimental tradition. However, Einstein’s own inferences from the experiments differ greatly from the inferences drawn by others in that tradition.


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Item Type: Published Article or Volume
Creators:
CreatorsEmailORCID
Patton, Lydiacritique@vt.edu0000-0003-2751-1196
Keywords: Experiment, Einstein, relativity, special relativity, Fizeau, light, optics, electrodynamics, theory change, Hertz, Lorentz, Michelson, physics
Subjects: Specific Sciences > Physics > Classical Physics
General Issues > Experimentation
General Issues > History of Philosophy of Science
General Issues > History of Science Case Studies
Specific Sciences > Physics > Relativity Theory
General Issues > Theory Change
Depositing User: Dr Lydia Patton
Date Deposited: 10 Oct 2017 12:57
Last Modified: 10 Oct 2017 12:57
Item ID: 13533
Journal or Publication Title: HOPOS
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Official URL: https://doi.org/10.1086/660167
DOI or Unique Handle: 10.1086/660167
Subjects: Specific Sciences > Physics > Classical Physics
General Issues > Experimentation
General Issues > History of Philosophy of Science
General Issues > History of Science Case Studies
Specific Sciences > Physics > Relativity Theory
General Issues > Theory Change
Date: 2011
Page Range: pp. 209-226
Volume: 1
Number: 2
URI: https://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/id/eprint/13533

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