Are Newtonian Gravitation and Geometrized Newtonian Gravitation Theoretically Equivalent?

James Owen Weatherall

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arXiv · 1411.5757

Are Newtonian Gravitation and Geometrized Newtonian Gravitation Theoretically Equivalent?

James Owen Weatherall

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Abstract

I argue that a criterion of theoretical equivalence due to Clark Glymour [Nous 11(3), 227-251 (1977)] does not capture an important sense in which two theories may be equivalent. I then motivate and state an alternative criterion that does capture the sense of equivalence I have in mind. The principal claim of the paper is that relative to this second criterion, the answer to the question posed in the title is "yes", at least on one natural understanding of Newtonian gravitation.

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James Owen Weatherall. 2014-11-21. Are Newtonian Gravitation and Geometrized Newtonian Gravitation Theoretically Equivalent?. https://arxiv.org/abs/1411.5757

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