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The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 1997 48(4):483-516; doi:10.1093/bjps/48.4.483
© 1997 by British Society for the Philosophy of Science
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Galileo's Ship and Spacetime Symmetry

Tim Budden

Unité de Logique et de Philosophic des Sciences Institut Supérieur de Philosophie Place du Cardinal Mercier, 14 B-1348 Louvain-la-Neuve Belgium e-mail: tim.budden{at}euronet.be

The empirical content of the modern definition of relativity given in the Andersonian approach to spacetime theory has been overestimated. It does not imply the empirical relativity Galileo illustrated in his famous ship thought experiment. I offer a number of arguments—some of which are in essential agreement with a recent analysis of Brown and Sypel [1995]—which make this plausible. Then I go on to present example spacetime theories which are modern relativistic but violate Galileo's relativity. I end by briefly discussing the prospects for improving on modern relativity.


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