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Is spacetime curved? Assessing the underdetermination of general relativity and teleparallel gravity

Mulder, Ruward A. and Read, James (2023) Is spacetime curved? Assessing the underdetermination of general relativity and teleparallel gravity. [Preprint]

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Abstract

Realism about general relativity (GR) seems to imply realism about spacetime curvature. The existence of the teleparallel equivalent of general relativity (TEGR) calls this into question, for (a) TEGR is set in a torsionful but flat spacetime, and (b) TEGR is empirically equivalent to GR. Knox (2011) claims that there is no genuine underdetermination here; we call this verdict into question, by isolating and addressing her individual arguments. In addition, we anticipate and evaluate two further worries for realism about the torsionful spacetimes of TEGR, which we call the ‘problem of operationalisability’ and the ‘problem of visualisability’.

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Item Type: Preprint
Creators:
CreatorsEmailORCID
Mulder, Ruward A.Ram202@cam.ac.uk0000-0002-9684-6267
Read, Jamesjames.read@philosophy.ox.ac.uk
Keywords: General relativity, teleparallel gravity, underdetermination, spacetime functionalism, torsion, operationalisation, visualisation
Subjects: Specific Sciences > Physics > Relativity Theory
Depositing User: Dr. James Read
Date Deposited: 29 Dec 2023 01:09
Last Modified: 29 Dec 2023 01:09
Item ID: 22897
Subjects: Specific Sciences > Physics > Relativity Theory
Date: 12 December 2023
URI: https://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/id/eprint/22897

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