Abstract
In the analysis of the concepts of space and time in the theory of relativity, a structure has emerged for the first time which is characteristics of all modern physics: the measuring instruments used to determine the properties of nature are themselves objects of that nature. The influence which the laws governing the measuring apparatus exert on the results of measurement must be inherent in these laws, since they are at the same time the laws of the results of the measurement.
In Einstein's theory of relativity this idea was applied consistently to the measurement of space and time intervals by light signals. The concepts of space and time thereby underwent a reinterpretation by which essential properties, attributed to these concepts in Newtonian mechanics, were lost.
The justification for this reinterpretation by reference to experimental results is challenged, however, by the proposition from the philosophy of Kant that space and time as conditions for the possibility of experience cannot, in their structure, depend on these experiences. This objection gives rise to the question of how one can arrive at an interpretation of the results of the special theory of relativity that is both physically and philosophically satisfactory.
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© 1976 D. Reidel Publishing Company, Dordrecht, Holland
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Mittelstaedt, P. (1976). Space and Time. In: Philosophical Problems of Modern Physics. Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science, vol 18. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-010-9617-1_2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-010-9617-1_2
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