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http://iramis.cea.fr/Phocea/Vie_des_labos/Ast/ast_visu.php?id_ast=761
Foundations of Physics in Greater Paris

17 décembre 2009  17h ENS, salle des Actes
 Harvey Brown (Oxford University)
 Dynamical interpretation of relativity (titre provisoire)

15 février 2010 17h ENS, salle des Actes
Craig Callender (University of California at Irvine)
Does time flow? (titre provisoire)

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Physical-Relativity-Space-time-structure-perspective/dp/0199275831
"Harvey Brown thinks that most philsophers are confused about
relativity. Most centrally, he thinks they're confused about the
relativistic effects of length contraction and time dilation. (...)
Physical Relativity explores the nature of the distinction at the
heart of Einstein's 1905 formulation of his special theory of
relativity: that between kinematics and dynamics. Einstein himself
became increasingly uncomfortable with this distinction, and with the
limitations of what he called the 'principle theory' approach inspired
by the logic of thermodynamics. A handful of physicists and
philosophers have over the last century likewise expressed doubts
about Einstein's treatment of the relativistic behaviour of rigid
bodies and clocks in motion in the kinematical part of his great
paper, and suggested that the dynamical understanding of length
contraction and time dilation intimated by the immediate precursors of
Einstein is more fundamental. (...) Physical Relativity is the well-
deserved co-recipient of the Lakatos Prize for Philosophy of Science."

http://www.amazon.com/Relativity-Simultaneity-Routledge-Contemporary-Philosophy/dp/0415701740
Einstein, Relativity and Absolute Simultaneity (Routledge Studies in
Contemporary Philosophy)
"Einstein, Relativity and Absolute Simultaneity is an anthology of
original essays by an international team of leading philosophers and
physicists who, on the centenary of Albert Einsteins Special Theory of
Relativity, come together in this volume to reassess the contemporary
paradigm of the relativistic concept of time. A great deal has changed
since 1905 when Einstein proposed his Special Theory of Relativity,
and this book offers a fresh reassessment of Special Relativitys
relativistic concept of time in terms of epistemology, metaphysics and
physics. There is no other book like this available; hence
philosophers and scientists across the world will welcome its
publication."
"UNFORTUNATELY FOR EINSTEIN'S SPECIAL RELATIVITY, HOWEVER, ITS
EPISTEMOLOGICAL AND ONTOLOGICAL ASSUMPTIONS ARE NOW SEEN TO BE
QUESTIONABLE, UNJUSTIFIED, FALSE, PERHAPS EVEN ILLOGICAL."
Craig Callender: "In my opinion, by far the best way for the tenser to
respond to Putnam et al is to adopt the Lorentz 1915 interpretation of
time dilation and Fitzgerald contraction. Lorentz attributed these
effects (and hence the famous null results regarding an aether) to the
Lorentz invariance of the dynamical laws governing matter and
radiation, not to spacetime structure. On this view, Lorentz
invariance is not a spacetime symmetry but a dynamical symmetry, and
the special relativistic effects of dilation and contraction are not
purely kinematical. The background spacetime is Newtonian or neo-
Newtonian, not Minkowskian. Both Newtonian and neo-Newtonian spacetime
include a global absolute simultaneity among their invariant
structures (with Newtonian spacetime singling out one of neo-Newtonian
spacetimes many preferred inertial frames as the rest frame). On this
picture, there is no relativity of simultaneity and spacetime is
uniquely decomposable into space and time."

Pentcho Valev
pvalev@yahoo.com