physics, philosophy

physics, philosophy of

Philosophical investigation of the concepts, problems, and methods of physics and related sciences. The philosophy of physics traditionally has been concerned with clarifying the logical structure, ontological commitments, and intertheoretic relations of fundamental physical theories, including relativity, quantum mechanics, and statistical mechanics. The field also addresses various metaphysical and epistemological aspects of problems encountered in the foundations of theoretical physics. Examples include the apparent “directed” nature of time, the meaning of probabilistic descriptions of the initial state of the universe in statistical mechanics, the measurement problem in quantum mechanics (the problem of stating in precise terms the conditions in which probabilistic as opposed to deterministic laws apply to the motion of an elementary particle), and the problem of reconciling quantum mechanics with special, and ultimately general, relativity. See also uncertainty principle; unified field theory.