Definition, Convention, and Simultaneity: Malament's Result and Its Alleged Refutation by Sarkar and Stachel

Rynasiewicz, Robert (2000) Definition, Convention, and Simultaneity: Malament's Result and Its Alleged Refutation by Sarkar and Stachel.

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Abstract

The question whether distant simultaneity (relativized
to an inertial frame) has a factual or a conventional
status in special relativity has long been disputed
and remains in contention even today. At one point
it appeared that Malament (1977) had settled the issue by
proving that the only non-trivial equivalence relation
definable from (temporally symmetric) causal connectability
is the standard simultaneity relation. Recently, though,
Sarkar and Stachel (1999) claim to have identified a suspect
assumption in
the proof by defining a non-standard simultaneity relation from
causal connectability. I contend that their critique
is based on a misunderstanding of the criteria for the
definability of a relation, a misunderstanding that
Malement's original treatment helped to foster. There are
in fact a variety of notions of definability that can
be brought to bear. They all, however, require a condition
that suffices to secure Malament's result. The non-standard
relation Sarkar and Stachel claim to be definable is not
so definable, and, I argue, their proposal to modify the notion
of ``causal definability'' is misguided. Finally, I address
the relevance of Malament's result to the thesis of conventionalism.

Available Versions of this Item

• Definition, Convention, and Simultaneity: Malament's Result and Its Alleged Refutation by Sarkar and Stachel (deposited 06 Febuary 2001) [Currently Displayed]
  • Definition, Convention, and Simultaneity: Malament's Result and Its Alleged Refutation by Sarkar and Stachel (deposited 18 December 2005)