Manchak, John Byron (2008) Can We Know the Global Structure of Spacetime? [Preprint]

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Abstract

Here, we briefly review the notion of observational indistinguishability within the context of classical general relativity. We settle a conjecture given by Malament (1977) concerning the subject and then strengthen the result considerably. The upshot is this: There seems to be a robust sense in which the global structure of every cosmological model is underdetermined.

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Item Type:	Preprint
Creators:	Creators Email ORCID Manchak, John Byron
Additional Information:	Forthcoming in Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics
Keywords:	Epistemology, Observational Indistinguishability, Underdetermination, General Relativity, Cosmology
Subjects:	Specific Sciences > Physics
Depositing User:	John Byron Manchak
Date Deposited:	16 Aug 2008
Last Modified:	07 Oct 2010 15:16
Item ID:	4162
Subjects:	Specific Sciences > Physics
Date:	August 2008
URI:	https://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/id/eprint/4162

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