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Research

I am interested in theoretical physics as a contribution to philosophy (see this draft, for example, entitled "Physically locating the present: a case of reading physics as a contribution to philosophy".)

My research divides roughly into the following areas:

Structuralism

'Structuralist Approaches to Physics' (NSF SES-0724383 Brading 201201): view project details, including papers, drafts, and bibliographies

Structuralism Workshop: November 17-20, 2010

Descartes and Newton

'Newton's law-constitutive approach to bodies: a response to Descartes', in Interpreting Newton: critical essays, ed. A. Janiak & E. Schliesser, Cambridge University Press.

‘On composite systems: Descartes, Newton, and the law-constitutive approach’, in Vanishing Matter and the Laws of Nature: Descartes and Beyond, ed. Dana Jalobeanu and Peter Anstey, Studies in Seventeenth-Century Philosophy, Routledge.

‘Three principles of unity in Newton', forthcoming in Studies in History and Philosophy of Science. (A draft is posted here.)

Symmetries

Symmetries in Physics: Philosophical Reflections

DPhil thesis: Symmetries, Conservation Laws, and Noether's Variational Problem

Some papers...

‘Which Symmetry? Noether, Weyl and Conservation of Electric Charge’, Studies in the History and Philosophy of Modern Physics 33, 3-22, 2002. (view paper)

‘General Covariance from the Perspective of Noether’s Theorems’, with Dr. H. R. Brown, Diálogos 79, 59-86, 2002. (view paper)

‘Symmetry and Symmetry-Breaking’, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, with Dr. Elena Castellani, 2003.

‘Are gauge symmetry transformations observable?’, with Dr. H. R. Brown, The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 55, 645-665, 2004. (view paper)

'A note on general relativity, energy conservation, and Noether's theorems', in Einstein Studies vol 11, ed. A. J. Kox and J. Eisenstaedt, 125-135, 2005.

'Hilbert's "Foundations of Physics": Gravitation and Electromagnetism Within the Axiomatic Method', Studies in the History and Philosophy of Modern Physics 39, 2008, pp. 102-153. (view paper)

Book review of L. Corry, David Hilbert and the Axiomatization of Physics (1898-1918), in Philosophia Mathematica (III) 15, 2007, 1-16.

Book review of G. Hon and B. R. Goldstein, From Summetria to Symmetry: the making of a revolutionary scientific concept: New Studies in the History of Science and Technology, Achimedes 20, Springer,  2008, pp. 335. Shorter version to appear in Metascience.

For a full list of publications, please see my CV.