Barrett, Thomas William and Manchak, JB (2024) On Coordinates and Spacetime Structure. [Preprint]

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Abstract

Philosophers and physicists often claim that the 'privileged coordinates' of a physical theory provide a window into its structure. The purpose of this paper is to examine whether this is the case. We show that there are general relativistic spacetimes that admit the same privileged coordinates but have different structure, and we infer from this that privileged coordinates do not provide a perfect guide to underlying structure. We conclude by isolating the conditions under which privileged coordinates do perfectly reflect structure.

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Item Type:	Preprint
Creators:	Creators Email ORCID Barrett, Thomas William thomaswbarrett@ucsb.edu Manchak, JB jmanchak@uci.edu
Keywords:	coordinates, structure, spacetime
Subjects:	Specific Sciences > Physics Specific Sciences > Physics > Relativity Theory General Issues > Structure of Theories Specific Sciences > Physics > Symmetries/Invariances
Depositing User:	Thomas Barrett
Date Deposited:	11 Jun 2024 16:43
Last Modified:	11 Jun 2024 16:43
Item ID:	23554
Subjects:	Specific Sciences > Physics Specific Sciences > Physics > Relativity Theory General Issues > Structure of Theories Specific Sciences > Physics > Symmetries/Invariances
Date:	10 June 2024
URI:	https://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/id/eprint/23554

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• On Coordinates and Spacetime Structure. (deposited 16 Apr 2024 23:50)
  • On Coordinates and Spacetime Structure. (deposited 11 Jun 2024 16:43) [Currently Displayed]

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