Article ID: CBB952356420

Careful with those scissors, Eugene! Against the observational indistinguishability of spacetimes (2021)

unapi

We discuss Manchak (2009a)'s result that there are locally (but not globally) isometric universes observationally indistinguishable from our own. This theorem makes the epistemic predicament of modern cosmology particularly problematic and the prospects of ever gaining knowledge of the global structure of the universe rather unlikely in the context of general relativity. We argue however that this conclusion is too quick; indeed, Manchak's theorem deploys spacetimes which are not physically reasonable, since they have features which are not the product of any physical process. This ultimately rests on the fact that local isometry between two spacetimes is not sufficient to guarantee that they are both physically reasonable. We propose an additional condition to properly define when a spacetime is physically reasonable, and we show that Manchak's spacetimes do not satisfy this further demand.

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https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB952356420/

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Authors & Contributors
Petit, Victor
Tatum, Brian Shane
Joshua Norton
Alberto Giovanni Biuso
Gilbert, Nora
O'Raifeartaigh, C.
Concepts
Space
Time
Philosophy of science
Physics
Cosmology
Relativity, general
Time Periods
20th century
21st century
20th century, early
19th century
20th century, late
Early modern
Places
United States
Germany
Institutions
School of Milan
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