Eleanor Knox wins 2015 Cushing Prize in History and Philosophy of Physics

Congratulations to Dr Eleanor Knox who has been announced as the winner of the Cushing Prize in History and Philosophy of Physics for 2015.

The award was announced by the John J. Reilly Center for Science, Technology, and Values, along with the Graduate Program in History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Notre Dame and the Advisory Committee of the James T. Cushing Memorial Prize in History and Philosophy of Physics.

The winning paper, Newtonian Spacetime Structure in Light of the Equivalence Principle, was published in The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science (2014). 

Dr Knox was nominated by Alastair Wilson of the University of Birmingham. Dr Wilson writes: “In the paper, Dr Knox appeals to the Equivalence Principle of General Relativity to argue that Newtonian mechanics is most naturally interpreted geometrically, so that the gravitational field is part of the spacetime structure rather than a force distinct from spacetime. She also makes significant contributions to our understanding of the relation between the resulting geometrized Newtonian gravitation theory and the orthodox non-geometrized theory.”

The Cushing Prize awards winners with $2000 plus an invitation to deliver a lecture as part of the History and Philosophy of Science Colloquium at the University of Notre Dame.