The Reduction of Physical Theories
Description
By describing examples of four fundamental physical theories, this work of Erhard Scheibe presents an important and powerful approach to reduction in physics. Novel to the approach is that it is based not on a single eternally valid concept of reduction, but on a series of recursively constructed reductions, with which all reductions appear as combinations of very specific elementary reductions. In addition to the kinds of reduction introduced in the first volume, the limiting case reduction is included as a new reduction type here, which becomes effective in combination with those introduced earlier. This second volume demonstrates the far-reaching consequences of the concept for selected examples in physics: Special and General Relativity Theory, and Quantum Mechanics. A separate chapter is dedicated to the subtle concept of micro-reduction and to kinetic theory. The book is systematically organized and intended for readers interested in philosophy of science as well as physicists without deep philosophical knowledge.
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Erhard Scheibe
(1927-2010) was for several decades the leading philosopher of physics in the German speaking world. He gained his Ph.D. in Mathematics from the University of Göttingen, where he worked with Werner Heisenberg at the Max Planck Institute for Physics. He later became Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker's assistant at Hamburg. Erhard Scheibe obtained his Habilitation in 1963 from the University of Hamburg with a philosophical study of quantum mechanics. From 1964 to 1982 he was a full Professor of Philosophy in Göttingen, and from 1982 to 1992 in Heidelberg. Over the course of his career, Prof. Scheibe published six monographs in the philosophy and history of physics, edited the von Weizsäcker Festschrift and two conference proceedings, and wrote numerous essays on the philosophy and history of physics and on the history of philosophy.
Translators:
Brigitte Falkenburg
holds a Ph.D. in Physics from the University of Heidelberg, a Ph.D. in Philosophy from the University of Bielefeld, and a Physics Diploma from the Technische Universität Berlin. She is Full Professor (emeritus) at the Technische Universität Dortmund. Her work focuses on the philosophy of physics and the history of philosophy (Kant, Neokantianism). In addition to almost 100 journal articles and book chapters in philosophy of physics, history of philosophy, and related subjects, Prof. Falkenburg has published six monographs on Kant, Hegel, philosophy of physics, and the philosophy of neuroscience. She has edited several books, among them Erhard Scheibe's "Selected Papers in the Philosophy of Physics".
Gregg Jaeger
holds a Ph.D. in Physics from Boston University and B.Sc. degrees in Mathematics, Philosophy, and Physics from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He is currently an Associate Professor of Natural Sciences and Mathematics at Boston University. His work focuses primarily on quantum theory. In addition to more than 70 journal articles in theoretical and experimental physics, history of science, philosophy, and mathematics, Prof. Jaeger has published three monographs in physics and the philosophy of science, edited two books and a number of conference proceedings in the foundations of quantum theory, and has written numerous book chapters in these fields.
Content
Introduction.- Reduction to relativistic theories.- Reduction to general relativity.- Micro-reductions.- Classical mechanics and quantum mechanics.