Metaphysical Experiments: Physics and the Invention of the Universe

Description

Focusing on the nonmathematical assumptions underlying significant events in modern science, Bjorn Ekeberg offers a critical history of contemporary physics that demystifies such concepts as singularity, blackbody radiation, the speed of light, natural constants, black holes, dark matter, and more. His reading of the metaphysical underpinnings of scientific cosmology offers an account of how we understand our place in the universe.

Bjorn Ekeberg has a PhD from University of Victoria, Canada, and is an independent researcher and writer living in Oslo, Norway.

"In this provocative and sharply written account, Bjorn Ekeberg makes a radical case for the social construction of physics and its truths, urging that the mathematical unification of physical phenomena is not only physics' goal but also a deeply metaphysical requirement for its progress-progress put into doubt, not to say crisis, by the emergence of mathematical theories (such as multiverse or string theory) that seem 'untestable in any empirical sense and probably remain beyond the horizon of experimental physics.'"-Brian Rotman, author of Becoming Beside Ourselves: The Alphabet, Ghosts, and Distributed Human Being "What if the basis of contemporary cosmology were false? This stirring question launches Bjorn Ekeberg on a lucid exploration of modern scientific history, leading to the recent marriage of cosmology with experimental particle physics. Well-informed in contemporary philosophy, Ekeberg provides a unique synthesis that will be of interest to philosophers of science and contemplative scientists alike."-Graham Harman, Southern California Institute of Architecture "This erudite, idiosyncratic book more than earns a place on the library shelf." -CHOICE