The Bristol Philosophy Department has been awarded a research project grant to support work on the refinement of the concept of ‘singularity resolution’ in the study of black holes and early universe cosmology.
Karim Thébault will lead the £385,000 research grant funded by the Leverhulme foundation to develop a model-based explication of singularity resolution in modern theoretical physics. He will collaborate on the project with Senior Project Advisor Juliusz Doboszewski (Krakow) and Research Fellow Erick Duque (Bristol).
An important goal of philosophy of science is to aid scientists in formulating precise and useful concepts. This project will create a novel framework, called ‘model-based explication’, that will lead to the refinement of a key scientific concept, ‘singularity resolution’, in the study of black holes and early universe cosmology. In imprecise terms, singularity resolution is the removal of mathematically and physically pathological behaviour within a physical theory. In conducting a model-based explication of singularity resolution we will use simple quantum models of black holes and cosmology to establish a more precise and useful scientific concept applicable in de-idealised contexts.
The project’s core objective is to provide a model-based explication of singularity resolution in modern theoretical physics. This aim will be pursued through three further sub-objectives: i) Explicate the concept of black hole singularity resolution in terms of necessary and sufficient criteria and relate these criteria to the cosmological case that was studied in previous work; ii) Use semi-classical analysis to connect quantum singularity resolution to the study of classical singularities in cosmology and black holes within the theorems of Penrose, Hawking and others; iii) Articulate the connections between singularity resolution and heuristic principles relating to the arrow of time and chaotic cosmology.