Hamburg 2016 – wissenschaftliches Programm

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AGPhil: Arbeitsgruppe Philosophie der Physik

AGPhil 3: Philosophy of Physics 3

AGPhil 3.3: Vortrag

Dienstag, 1. März 2016, 14:30–15:00, VMP6 HS G

The Friedmann Equations. From a Historical and Philosophical Point of View — •Andrea Reichenberger — Alfried Krupp School Laboratory, Ruhr-University Bochum

In this paper a critical review of the Friedmann equations is provided from a historical and philosophical point of view. In the early twenties of the last century the Russian physicist Alexander Friedmann presented solutions of Einstein's field equations which permit models of the universe that are homogeneous and isotropic, but not static (as opposed to Einstein's assumption that the universe is static). Nowadays the expansion of the universe has been strongly confirmed by experiment, observation and calculation, in particular by precision measurements of the Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation and by studies of galaxy clustering. However, one lesson we can learn from history is that expanding universe models sets additional restrictions regarding conditions of space-time orientability and stable causality. Friedmann himself was fully aware of that fact. Deeply influenced by David Hilbert's foundational program for the ``axiomatization of physics'', he found his nonstatic solutions of the field equations through critical reflection on Hilbert's interpretation of the principle of causality.