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Is Curvature Intrinsic to Physical Space?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 April 2022

Graham Nerlich
Graham Nerlich*
Affiliation:
University of Adelaide
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Abstract

Wesley C. Salmon (1977) has written a characteristically elegant and ingenious paper The Curvature of Physical Space'. He argues in it that the curvature of a space cannot be intrinsic to it. Salmon relates his view that space is affinely amorphous to Grünbaum's view (Grünbaum 1973, esp. Ch. 16 & 22) that it is metrically amorphous and acknowledges parallels between the arguments which have been offered for each opinion. I wish to dispute these conclusions on philosophical grounds quite as much as on geometrical ones. Although I concentrate most on arguing for a well defined, intrinsic affinity for physical space the arguments extend easily to support a well defined, intrinsic metric.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 46 , Issue 3 , September 1979 , pp. 439 - 458
Copyright
Copyright © Philosophy of Science Association 1979

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