PhilSci Archive

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. [Preprint]

This is the latest version of this item.

[img]
Preview
PDF
psa00.pdf

Download (210kB)

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.


Export/Citation: EndNote | BibTeX | Dublin Core | ASCII/Text Citation (Chicago) | HTML Citation | OpenURL
Social Networking:
Share |

Item Type: Preprint
Creators:
CreatorsEmailORCID
Rynasiewicz, Robert
Keywords: relativity, simultaneity, convention, conventionalism, conventionality, Einstein, Malament, Sarkar, Stachel, definability
Subjects: Specific Sciences > Physics > Relativity Theory
Depositing User: Robert Rynasiewicz
Date Deposited: 18 Dec 2005
Last Modified: 07 Oct 2010 15:10
Item ID: 350
Subjects: Specific Sciences > Physics > Relativity Theory
Date: March 2000
URI: https://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/id/eprint/350

Available Versions of this Item

Monthly Views for the past 3 years

Monthly Downloads for the past 3 years

Plum Analytics

Actions (login required)

View Item View Item