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Coincidence and reproducibility in the EHT black hole experiment
Studies in history and philosophy of science Pub Date : 2020-11-09 , DOI: 10.1016/j.shpsa.2020.09.007
Galina Weinstein 1
Affiliation  

This paper discusses some philosophical aspects related to the recent publication of the experimental results of the 2017 black hole experiment, namely the first image of the supermassive black hole at the center of galaxy M87. In this paper I present a philosophical analysis of the 2017 Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) black hole experiment. I first present Hacking's philosophy of experimentation. Hacking gives his taxonomy of elements of laboratory science and distinguishes a list of elements. I show that the EHT experiment conforms to major elements from Hacking's list. I then describe with the help of Galison's Philosophy of the Shadow how the EHT Collaboration created the famous black hole image. Galison outlines three stages for the reconstruction of the black hole image: Socio-Epistemology, Mechanical Objectivity, after which there is an additional Socio-Epistemology stage. I subsequently present my own interpretation of the reconstruction of the black hole image and I discuss model fitting to data. I suggest that the main method used by the EHT Collaboration to assure trust in the results of the EHT experiment is what philosophers call the Argument from Coincidence. I show that using this method for the above purpose is problematic. I present two versions of the Argument from Coincidence: Hacking's Coincidence and Cartwright's Reproducibility by which I analyse the EHT experiment. The same estimation of the mass of the black hole is reproduced in four different procedures. The EHT Collaboration concludes: the value we have converged upon is robust. I analyse the mass measurements of the black hole with the help of Cartwright's notion of robustness. I show that the EHT Collaboration construe Coincidence/Reproducibility as Technological Agnosticism and I contrast this interpretation with van Fraassen's scientific agnosticism.



中文翻译:

EHT黑洞实验中的巧合性和再现性

本文讨论了与最近公布的 2017 年黑洞实验的实验结果有关的一些哲学方面,即第一张位于星系 M87 中心的超大质量黑洞图像。在本文中,我对 2017 年事件视界望远镜 (EHT) 黑洞实验进行了哲学分析。我首先介绍哈金的实验哲学。哈金给出了他对实验室科学元素的分类,并区分了一系列元素。我表明 EHT 实验符合 Hacking 列表中的主要元素。然后我在 Galison 的影子哲学的帮助下描述了 EHT 协作如何创建著名的黑洞图像。Galison 概述了重建黑洞图像的三个阶段:社会认识论、机械客观性、之后还有一个额外的社会认识论阶段。随后,我提出了我自己对黑洞图像重建的解释,并讨论了模型与数据的拟合。我建议 EHT 合作组织用来确保对 EHT 实验结果的信任的主要方法是哲学家所谓的巧合论证。我表明,将这种方法用于上述目的是有问题的。我提出了来自巧合的论证的两个版本:Hacking 的巧合和 Cartwright 的 Reproducibility,我通过它们来分析 EHT 实验。对黑洞质量的相同估计在四个不同的过程中重现。EHT 协作的结论是:我们融合的价值是稳健的。我在卡特赖特的帮助下分析了黑洞的质量测量结果 s 稳健性的概念。我表明 EHT 协作将巧合/再现性解释为技术不可知论,并将这种解释与 van Fraassen 的科学不可知论进行对比。

更新日期:2021-01-13
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