Hostname: page-component-7479d7b7d-68ccn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-12T08:35:50.781Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Observations, Simulations, and Reasoning in Astrophysics

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Melissa Jacquart
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Astrophysics faces methodological challenges as a result of being a predominantly observation-based science without access to traditional experiments. In light of these challenges, astrophysicists frequently rely on computer simulations. Using collisional ring galaxies as a case study, I argue that computer simulations play three roles in reasoning in astrophysics: (1) hypothesis testing, (2) exploring possibility space, and (3) amplifying observations.

Type
Physical Sciences
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 87 , Issue 5: PSA 2018 - Proceedings of the 2018 biennial meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association. Part II Symposia Papers , December 2020 , pp. 1209 - 1220
Copyright
Copyright © The Philosophy of Science Association

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

†

I thank Barry Madore, Michael Weisberg, and Marja Seidel for fruitful discussions on this topic and for our ongoing collaborative projects. I would also like to thank Lucas Dunlap, Angela Potochnik, and the anonymous referees for helpful comments on earlier drafts of this article. This work was supported by National Science Foundation award SES-1557138.

References

Appleton, P. N., and Struck-Marcell, Curtis. 1996. “Collisional Ring Galaxies.” Fundamentals of Cosmic Physics 16:111–220.Google Scholar
Arp, Halton C., and Madore, Barry F.. 1987. A Catalogue of Southern Peculiar Galaxies and Associations, Vol. 1, Positions and Descriptions. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Guala, Francesco. 2002. “Models, Simulations, and Experiments.” In Model-Based Reasoning: Science, Technology, Values, ed. Magnani, Lorenzo and Nersessian, Nancy J., 59–74. New York: Kluwer.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hernquist, Lars, and Weil, Melinda L.. 1993. “Spokes in Ring Galaxies.” Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society 261 (4): 804–18.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hopkins, Philip F. 2015. “A New Class of Accurate, Mesh-Free Hydrodynamic Simulation Methods.” Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society 450 (1): 53–110.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lynds, Roger, and Toomre, A. L. A. R.. 1976. “On the Interpretation of Ring Galaxies: The Binary Ring System II Hz 4.” Astrophysical Journal 209:382–88.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Morgan, Mary S. 2005. “Experiments versus Models: New Phenomena, Inference and Surprise.” Journal of Economic Methodology 12 (2): 317–29.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Morrison, Margaret. 2015. Reconstructing Reality: Models, Mathematics, and Simulations. Oxford Studies in Philosophy of Science. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Parke, Emily C. 2014. “Experiments, Simulations, and Epistemic Privilege.” Philosophy of Science 81 (4): 516–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Parker, Wendy S. 2009. “Does Matter Really Matter? Computer Simulations, Experiments, and Materiality.” Synthese 169 (3): 483–96.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Weisberg, Michael. 2013. Simulation and Similarity: Using Models to Understand the World. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Weisberg, Michael, Jacquart, Melissa, Madore, Barry, and Seidel, Marja. 2018. “The Dark Galaxy Hypothesis.” Philosophy of Science 85 (5): 1204–15.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wetzel, Andrew R., Hopkins, Philip F., Kim, Ji-hoon, Faucher-Giguère, Claude-André, Kereš, Dušan, and Quataert, Eliot. 2016. “Reconciling Dwarf Galaxies with ΛCDM Cosmology: Simulating a Realistic Population of Satellites around a Milky Way–Mass Galaxy.” Astrophysical Journal Letters 827 (2): L23.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Winsberg, Eric. 2010. Science in the Age of Computer Simulation. Chicago: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zwicky, F. 1941. “Hydrodynamics and the Structure of Stellar Systems.” In Theodore Von Kármán, Anniversary Volume: Contributions to Applied Mechanics and Related Subjects by the Friends of Theodore Von Kármán on His Sixtieth Birthday. Pasadena: California Institute of Technology.Google Scholar