| Instructor: | Brad Skow. |
| Office Hours: | No regular office hours; but I am in all day on most days. Email to make an appointment. Short notice (same day appointments) usually work out. |
| Grader: | Jay Hodges. Email: jh4@mit.edu; office: 32-D912. |
| Lectures: | MWF, 10am, 2-147. |
| Requirements: | There will be four (4) homework assignments, two (2) short papers of five to seven pages, and several take-home quizzes. The topics of the homework assignments are: (1) Newton's arguments; (2) the status of velocity; (3) the geometries of spacetime; (4) time travel. Homework (3) will not contain much philosophy; it exists to help you learn the (small amount) of math and physics presented in class. For the short papers you will have several topics to choose from. The homework assignments are worth 25% of your grade; the quizzes, 10%; and the papers, 65%. |
| On Quizzes: | Occasionally I will announce that there will be a "take home" quiz due at the next class meeting. The quiz will be some short question about the reading. I will give you the question in class and also put it on this web page. I may (anonymously) read out some of the handed-in answers as part of the class discussion. |
| Grading Policies: | You may work on homeworks with other students, but your write-up must be your own. Papers and homeworks (1), (2), and (3) will receive one of four grades: A, B, C, or F. The first paper and each of the first two homeworks may be re-submitted for a second grade (provided the original grade was not an F). If you re-submit an assignment your final grade on that assignment is equal to the higher of the two grades. (If the assignment is a homework, you do not need to re-write all your answers; just the ones you want to change. You have 1 week to resubmit an assignment. Resubmit it with the original, graded assignment.) Similarly, your first paper may be re-submitted for a second grade. Quizzes are graded pass/fail. |
| Note on Readings: | Each reading should be done before the class for which it is assigned. The number of pages assigned in this class is small, but the readings are difficult. You will not fully understand them if you read them just once. |
| Homework: | HW1 (due 9/23) | HW2 (due 9/30) | HW3 pt1 (due 10/17) | HW3 pt 2 (due 10/24) | HW4 (due 11/30) | comments on HW4. |
| Quizzes: | QZ1 | QZ1 solutions, comments | QZ2 | QZ2 comments |
| Papers: | Paper 1 (due 10/14) | Paper 2 (due 12/14) |
| Resources: | Guidelines for writing philosophy papers. |
| Date | Topic | Reading |
| Part 1: Problems of Space, Time, and Motion | ||
| 9/7 | Overview and Introduction. | |
| 9/9 | Introduction to the substantivalism / relationalism debate. | Handout on arguments Post-class remarks. |
| 9/12 | Newton's Arguments. | Newton, The Principia (excerpt). Newton handout. Post-class remarks. |
| 9/14 | The Bucket Argument; Arguments for Relationalism. | |
| 9/16 | Relationalist physics.HW1 due | |
| 9/19 | What is Velocity? Quiz 1 due in class. | Carroll, Instantaneous Motion. Arntzenius, Are there really instantaneous velocities? (sections 1-3 ONLY). |
| 9/21 | (Student Holiday: no class.) | |
| 9/23 | HW1 due (again) | |
| 9/26 | Skepticism about Geometry. | |
| 9/28 | Simplicity. Quiz 2 due in class | Reichenbach, The Philosophy of Space and time (excerpt). |
| 9/30 | HW2 due. Reichenbach's response to the Skeptical Problem. | |
| Part 2: The Geometries of Spacetime | ||
| 10/3 | Newtonian Spacetime. | Lecture notes on classical spacetimes. |
| 10/5 | Problems with Newtonian Spacetime. | |
| 10/7 | Leibnizian, Galilean Spacetime. | |
| 10/10 | (Columbus Day; No Class.) | |
| 10/12 | Relativistic Spacetime. | Lecture notes on relativistic spacetime. |
| 10/14 | First Paper Due | |
| 10/17 | HW3 pt1 due | |
| Part 3: Philosophical Questions about Relativity | ||
| 10/19 | Is Relative Simultaneity "Conventional"? | Salmon, The Philosophical Significance of the One-Way Speed of Light, sections 1-6 only. Handout. |
| 10/21 | Optional Q and A / review session on relativistic spacetime. | |
| 10/24 | Conventionalism, continued. HW3 pt2 due | improved conventionalism handout. |
| 10/26 | More Special Relativity (length contraction). | |
| 10/28 | The Brian Greene session. | |
| 10/31 | Faster Than Light? | Arntzenius, Causal Paradoxes in Special Relativity. tachyon handout. |
| 11/2 | ||
| 11/4 | Relativity and the Passage of Time. | Putnam, Time and Physical Geometry. |
| 11/7 | first handout on time. | |
| 11/9 | Stein, On Einstein-Minkowski Space-Time. second handout on time. | |
| 11/11 | (Veteran's Day: No Class.) | |
| 11/14 | Class canceled for illness. | |
| 11/16 | Time Travel: consistent and inconsistent stories. | Lewis, The Paradoxes of Time Travel. |
| 11/18 | Consistent and Inconsistent stories, continued. | Recaps of time travel discussions. |
| 11/21 | Time Travel: Personal Time. | Arntzenius, Time Travel: Double Your Fun. |
| 11/23 | (No Class.) | |
| 11/25 | (Thanksgiving Break: No Class.) | |
| 11/28 | The Grandfather Paradox. | |
| 11/30 | The Grandfather Paradox, continued. HW4 due. | . |
| 12/2 | Deliberation for Time Travelers; Time Travel and Consistency Constraints. | |
| 12/5 | Time Travel and Consistency Constraints. | Arntzenius and Maudlin, Time Travel and Modern Physics |
| 12/7 | Time Travel in General Relativity. | Malament, Time Travel in the Godel Universe. |
| 12/9 | No class --- instructor away. | |
| 12/12 | E=mc^2? | Lange, The Most Famous Equation. (Supplementary: Baierlein, Newton to Einstein [excerpt]). |
| 12/14 | Crazy Stuff about Black Holes that You Don't Know. Final Paper Due. |