A Philosophical Approach to MOND: Assessing the Milgromian Research Program in Cosmology

A Philosophical Approach to MOND: Assessing the Milgromian Research Program in Cosmology
ISBN-10
1108665683
ISBN-13
9781108665681
Category
Science
Language
English
Published
2020-04-30
Publisher
Cambridge University Press
Author
David Merritt

Description

Dark matter is a fundamental component of the standard cosmological model, but in spite of four decades of increasingly sensitive searches, no-one has yet detected a single dark-matter particle in the laboratory. An alternative cosmological paradigm exists: MOND (MOdified Newtonian Dynamics). Observations explained in the standard model by postulating dark matter are described in MOND by proposing a modification of Newton's laws of motion. Both MOND and the standard model have had successes and failures – but only MOND has repeatedly predicted observational facts in advance of their discovery. In this volume, David Merritt outlines why such predictions are considered by many philosophers of science to be the 'gold standard' when it comes to judging a theory's validity. In a world where the standard model receives most attention, the author applies criteria from the philosophy of science to assess, in a systematic way, the viability of this alternative cosmological paradigm.

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