Constructive Axiomatics for Spacetime Physics by Emily Adlam,... - 9780198922377

Constructive Axiomatics for Spacetime PhysicsAuthor(s): Emily Adlam, Niels Linnemann, James Read\nFormat: Hardback\nPublisher: Oxford University Press, United Kingdom\nImprint: Oxford University Press\nISBN-13: 9780198922377, 978-0198922377\nSynopsis\nThe programme of 'constructive axiomatics', promulgated by Hans Reichenbach in 1924, seeks to build up the architecture of our best theories of physics from basic axioms supposedly imbued with immediate and indubitable empirical content. Taking inspiration from Reichenbach, Hermann Weyl proposed his own 'causal-inertial' approach to the constructive axiomatization of Einstein's general relativity, according to which a relativistic spacetime can be constructed solely from the trajectories of light rays and freely-falling particles; this project, however, came to fruition only in 1972, with the constructive axiomatization of general relativity due to Ehlers, Pirani, and Schild ('EPS').\n\nOne century since Reichenbach, and fifty years sin.