The Reduction of Physical Theories

By describing examples of four fundamental physical theories, this work of Erhard Scheibe presents an important and powerful approach to reduction in physics. Novel to the approach is that it is based not on a single eternally valid concept of reduction, but on a series of recursively constructed reductions, with which all reductions appear as combinations of very specific elementary reductions. In addition to the kinds of reduction introduced in the first volume, the limiting case reduction is included as a new reduction type here, which becomes effective in combination with those introduced earlier. This second volume demonstrates the far-reaching consequences of the concept for selected examples in physics: Special and General Relativity Theory, and Quantum Mechanics. A separate chapter is dedicated to the subtle concept of micro-reduction and to kinetic theory. The book is systematically organized and intended for readers interested in philosophy of science as well as physicists without deep philosophical knowledge.

Introduction. - Reduction to relativistic theories. - Reduction to general relativity. - Micro-reductions. - Classical mechanics and quantum mechanics.