Meet the People at the BHI
Niels Martens
Biography
Niels Martens is a University Lecturer in philosophy of physics at Utrecht University, where he leads the Utrecht Philosophy of Astronomy & Cosmology Group as the PI of the ERC Project “COSMO-MASTER” (Philosophy of COSMOlogy: Matter And SpaceTime ERadicated). His research focuses on dimensional physical quantities and (scaling) symmetries, as well as on various topics within the philosophy of astronomy and cosmology, such as dark matter, dark energy and black holes. He contends that such case studies put pressure on the conceptual dichotomy between spacetime and matter, an outdated distinction that hinders progress in both physics and philosophy. Dr. Martens is a member of the Bonn St. Andrews Gravitational Constant Network, and leads the Collaborations Focus Group of the History Philosophy Culture Working Group (HPC) of the Next Generation Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration (ngEHT).
Niels Martens studied physics and philosophy at the University of Groningen, and holds an MSt in Philosophy of Physics and a DPhil (=PhD) from Magdalen College, University of Oxford. He was a postdoctoral research fellow within the interdisciplinary research unit “Epistemology of the Large Hadron Collider”, while being associated with RWTH Aachen University (Institute for Theoretical Particle Physics and Cosmology) and the University of Bonn (Lichtenberg Group for History and Philosophy of Physics). Before taking up his current post, he was a Marie Curie Fellow at Utrecht University (Freudenthal Institute & Descartes Centre for the History and Philosophy of the Sciences and the Humanities).
More From Niels
HPC Working Group of the ngEHT
Gravitational Constant Network
Honorary Affiliate: Stephen Hawking
In Memoriam
Former Honorary Affiliate
Dennis Stanton Avery and Sally Tsui Wong-Avery Director of Research, Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics, University of Cambridge Physics
Learn More About Stephen