Relative Motion

My thesis examined the historical and philosophical foundations of Mach’s principle, its relationship to Einstein’s theories, and its use by other physicists to motivate relational inertia and gravitational theories in the 20th century.

During my doctorate, I wrote papers on:

• The relevance of scale-relativity for the 19th century problem of space. Link.
• The history and interpretation of Mach’s principle. Link.
• The relationship of Mach’s principle to the geometry of the universe in general relativity. Link.
• The history of 20th century relational inertia and gravity unification models. Link.

I have also recently written a critique of the classical doctrine of inertia in classical mechanics, focussing on Euler, which will likely appear in 2027 in a volume on the spacetime-matter distinction edited by Niels Martens and colleagues.

My philosophical stance combines rationalist and empiricist elements. I am chiefly concerned about where the line is to be drawn between the a posteriori and a priori elements of physical theories; more broadly I hope to help reaffirm the rational basis of post-classical physical theories, and thereby revive an older style of scientific investigation that combines philosophical and empirical inquiry to make progress in theoretical physics, helping this science gain clarity and direction.

Currently, I am working on a project which seeks to understand what were the conditions that led to a revival of rationalist thinking among British cosmologists (and more broadly) in the 1930s. I am exploring the thesis that experimental developments which made the Universe as a whole into a legitimate object of empirical investigation licensed a revival of rationalism and necessitarianism in thinkers such as Milne, Eddington and Dirac.

Henri Poincaré, Joseph Delboeuf, Ernst Mach, Dennis Sciama, Hermann Weyl, Julian Barbour, Immanuel Kant, Arthur Schopenhauer.