146: Philosophy of PhysicsChristian W¨uthrich Fall 2007Class schedule: TuTh 12:30-1:50pm, Warren Lecture Hall 2207Website: http://philosophy.ucsd.edu/faculty/wuthrich/Contact: Office hours are Mo 1-2, Th 2-3Room 8047 HSS T 858-534-6548 B [email protected] is the nature of space and time? This class will address this metaphysical question andsurvey the classic debates in the philosophy of space and time. These debates are inextri-cably linked with developments in fundamental physics, in particular Newtonian mechanics,statistical mechanics, special and general relativity. We will try to understand how themetaphysical issues concerning space and time interact with foundational issues in spacetimephysics.Prerequisites: Upper-division standing or permission of instructor.Required texts• Barry Dainton, Time and Space, McGill-Queen’s University Press (Montreal and King-ston, 2001). This book is available at the Price Center Bookstore.• There are links from the course web page to all other articles, except those that willbe made available through e-reserves.Course requirements and evaluationThe grade for this course will be determined by the total points a student earns from thethree types of evaluation indicated below. I guarantee that a total of 60 points will earnat least a D and a total of 70 points will at least get you a C. If you take the class for aPass/Fail grade, you must have at least a C in order to pass the class.1. Quizzes (30 points): There will be six short quizzes during the quarter, each worth5 points. They will be announced in class one meeting before they will be held. Nomake-up quizzes will be given.2. Midterm paper (30 points) [turnitin.com]: There will be a take-home midtermpaper worth 30 points, due on 6 November 2007 at the beginning of class. Thisexam is “open books”, i.e. you are allowed—and encouraged—to use any sources suchas libraries or the internet, and you are permitted to discuss the exams with yourclassmates. All sources, including discussions with clas smate s, must be appropriatelyacknowledged. All answers given must be in your own wording. Closely paraphrasing orsimply copying the work of others (such as authors of books or articles, or classmates)1is not allowed and will be severely penalized. For each day your exam is late, five pointswill be deducted from your point total, although no negative point totals w ill be givenfor the midterm exam.3. Final exam (40 points): There will be a final exam on 14 December 2007, 11:30am-2:29pm, in a location to be announced. This exam will consist of short identifications,one-paragraph-answer questions testing your comprehension of important arguments,as well as a question asking for an essay-length answer for which you must synthesizematerial. You are not allowed to use any books or notes or the like, i.e. the exam is“closed-books”. The final exam is cumulative, i.e. it covers all the material of the entirecourse.The midterm paper must be submitted both as hard copy as well as through turnitin.comin order to earn credit. You must enroll at turnitin.com by creating a new profile. Youwill need the following course information:Class ID: 1931313Enrollment Password: 599681If you have any problems with using turnitin.com, pleas e notify the UCSD Student ConductCoordinator or his Assistant at 4-0778.The fine printStudents agree that by taking this course all required papers will be subject to submission for textualsimilarity review to Turnitin.com for the detection of plagiarism. All submitted papers will be in-cluded as source documents in the Turnitin.com reference database solely for the purpose of detectingplagiarism of such papers. Use of the Turnitin.com service is subject to the terms of use agreementposted on the Turnitin.com site.You must observe the University’s Policy on Integrity of Scholarship, which can be found at http://www-senate.ucsd.edu/manual/appendices/app2.htm.Make-up exams (for both midterms and final) will only be given under the most severe circumstances.The student who wishes to write a make-up exam must inform me (by phone or email) ahead of thetime of when the exam is due (midterms) or takes place (final). In order to qualify for a make-upexam, appropriate evidence of the most severe circumstances must be produced by the student. I willdetermine, in consultation with the student, what qualifies as appropriate evidence.Tentative scheduleReadings: for each session, the corresponding chapter in Dainton must be read in advance; thereadings with an asterisk are background reading which will not be examined in either the quizzes orthe final exam. SEP stands for Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, edited by Ed Zalta. You shouldread the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy’s entry on time (http://www.iep.utm.edu/t/time.htm)as we discuss the topics in the course.2Date Topic and readings27 Sept Introduction: time and spaceDainton, Ch 12 Oct McTaggart on time’s unrealityDainton, Ch 2SEP entry on change, http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/change/, Secs 1-54 Oct Static timeDainton, Ch 3∗Donald C Williams, “The Myth of Passage,” J Phil 48 (1951), 457-472.9 Oct Asymmetries within timeDainton, Ch 4∗SEP on asymmetry in time, http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/time-thermo/11 Oct Tensed timeDainton, Ch 516 Oct Dynamic timeDainton, Ch 6∗Ned Markosian, “How fast doe s time pass?” PPR 53 (1993), 829-844.18 Oct Time and consciousnessDainton, Ch 7∗SEP on experience of time, http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/time-experience/23 Oct Time travelDainton, Ch 8∗David Lewis, “The Paradoxes of Time Travel,” Am Phil Q 13 (1976), 145-52∗Deutsch and Lockwood, “The quantum physics of time travel,” Sci Am, March 1994, 68-7425 Oct Conceptions of voidDainton, Ch 930 Oct Space: the classical debateDainton, Ch 10SEP on absolutism and relationalism, http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/spacetime-theories/1 Nov Absolute motionDainton, Ch 11∗SEP on Newton on space and time, http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/newton-stm/SEP entry on inertial motion (Sec 1), http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/spacetime-iframes/6 Nov Motion in spacetimeDainton, Ch 128 Nov Curved spaceDainton, Ch 1313 Nov Tangible spaceDainton, Ch 1415 Nov Spatial anti-realismDainton, Ch 1520 Nov Special relativityDainton, Ch 16∗Michel Janssen’s survey article “App endix A: Special Relativity”27 Nov Relativity and realityDainton, Ch 17SEP on becoming and modern physics,