Stöltzner, Michael (2001) The Dynamics of Thought Experiments - Comment to Atkinson. [Preprint]

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Abstract

Commenting on Atkinson's paper I argue that leading to a successful real experiment is not the only scale on which a thought experiment's value is judged. Even the path from the original EPR thought experiment to Aspect's verification of the Bell inequalities was long-winded and involved considerable input from the sides of technology and mathematics. Von Neumann's construction of hidden variables was, moreover, a genuinely mathematical thought experiment that was successfully criticized by Bell. Such thought experiments are also possible in string theory, where any (non-trivial) empirical corroboration seems to be out of reach. Yet appraising mathematical thought experiments and their contribution to physical thought experiments requires a dynamical account which in the spirit of Mach and Lakatos attributes due weight to informal mathematical reasoning or empirical intuition.

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Item Type:	Preprint
Creators:	Creators Email ORCID Stöltzner, Michael
Keywords:	Thought Experiment, EPR-paradox, Bell inequalities, string theory, Galileo, John von Neumann, Imre Lakatos, Ernst Mach
Subjects:	General Issues > Experimentation General Issues > History of Philosophy of Science Specific Sciences > Physics > Quantum Mechanics
Depositing User:	Dr. Michael Stoeltzner
Date Deposited:	26 Apr 2002
Last Modified:	07 Oct 2010 15:10
Item ID:	626
Subjects:	General Issues > Experimentation General Issues > History of Philosophy of Science Specific Sciences > Physics > Quantum Mechanics
Date:	October 2001
URI:	https://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/id/eprint/626

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