2018/11/09 by Karen Crowther, Crowther, Karen, Niels Linnemann +3 · 3 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Cosmology and Gravitation Theories #FOS: Physical sciences #General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology (gr-qc) #History and Philosophy of Physics (physics.hist-ph) #Noncommutative and Quantum Gravity Theories #Quantum Electrodynamics and Casimir Effect
paper · doi:10.48550/arxiv.1811.03859
openalex publication_date 2018/11/09 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/01
Analogue experiments have attracted interest for their potential to shed light on inaccessible domains. For instance, `dumb holes' in fluids and Bose-Einstein condensates, as analogues of black holes, have been promoted as means of confirming the existence of Hawking radiation in real black holes. We compare analogue experiments with other cases of experiment and simulation in physics. We argue---contra recent claims in the philosophical literature---that analogue experiments are not capable of confirming the existence of particular phenomena in inaccessible target systems. As they must assume the physical adequacy of the modelling framework used to describe the inaccessible target system, arguments to the conclusion that analogue experiments can yield confirmation for phenomena in those target systems, such as Hawking radiation in black holes, beg the question.