Is every playing with imagination a thought experiment?

Kragujevac Journal of Science

卷:2016

Stanković Nina D.¹  Ristić Vladimir M.¹ 

[1] Department of Physics, Faculty of Science, Kragujevac;

关键词: ;   

DOI  :  10.5937/KgJSci1638063S

来源: DOAJ

【 摘 要 】

In this paper we are analyzing thought experiments that could be found in Einstein and Galileo's work, noticing that some researchers are even declaring certain presocratic thinking as thought experiments. The term was coined before Einstein, and there were others who designed experiments full of imagination. Yet thought experiments are a subset of scientific experiments and should be looked for in experimental sciences like physics, so here imaginative exercises are not accepted as thought experiments. Thus in this paper a new working definition of a thought experiment is proposed and some rather dubious examples that are now widely being proclaimed for thought experiments are properly classified. Also, we will give a general characterization of thought experiments as they appear in modern physics, to draw some conclusions about them and then analyze some Einstein's work.

【 授权许可】

Unknown