Shows
MCMP – Philosophy of PhysicsBest Possible Worlds and Random Walks: The Principle of Least Action as a Thought ExperimentMichael Stöltzner (South Carolina) gives a talk at the Irvine-Munich Workshop on the Foundations of Classical and Quantum Field Theories (14 December, 2014) titled "Best Possible Worlds and Random Walks: The Principle of Least Action as a Thought Experiment". Abstract: Over the centuries, no other principle of classical physics has to a larger extent nourished exalted hopes of a universal theory, has constantly been plagued by mathematical counterexamples, and has ignited metaphysical controversies than has the principle of least action (PLA). The aim of this paper is first to survey a series of modern approaches, among them the structural realist readings o...2018-04-1100 minMCMP – Philosophy of ScienceThe Varieties of Explanations in the Higgs SectorMichael Stöltzner (South Carolina) gives a talk at the MCMP Colloquium (19 November, 2014) titled "The Varieties of Explanations in the Higgs Sector". Abstract: I argue that there is no single universal conception of scientific explanation that is consistently employed throughout Higgs physics – ranging from the successful search for a standard model (SM) Higgs particle and the hitherto unsuccessful searches beyond it, to phenomenological model builders in the Higgs sector and theoretical physicists interested in the Higgs mechanism. But the coexistence of deductive-statistical, unificationist, model-based, and statistical-relevance explanations does not amount to a fragmentation of the discipline, but allows elementary particle phy...2014-12-1857 minMCMP – Philosophy of PhysicsFeynman Diagrams as ModelsMichael Stöltzner (South Carolina) gives a talk at the MCMP Colloquium (17 July, 2013) titled "Feynman Diagrams as Models". Abstract: While Feynman considered his diagrams as pictorial representation of (real and virtual) physical processes, Dyson took then as a mere bookkeeping tool for mathematical expressions in a perturbation series. This split perspective has persisted since, especially when Feynman diagrams gradually extended their sway into modern particle physics. I argue that the modern debates on models in science can build a bridge between both perspectives by granting Feynman diagrams some explanatory autonomy and representative features. While a single Feynman diagram remains isomorph t...2013-11-0300 minMCMP – Philosophy of ScienceCompleteness, Categoricity, and DismissalMichael Stöltzner (South Carolina) gives a talk at the MCMP Colloquium (18 July, 2013) titled "Completeness, Categoricity, and Dismissal". Abstract: In 1939, von Neumann panned Carnap “totally naıve, simplistic views on the issue of ‘completeness’ of the axiomatics of mathematics (‘categoricity’)” and expressed his surprise that philosophers were attracted by them. Taking up recent scholarship on Carnap’s work on axiomatic around 1930 and on von Neumann’s axiomatization of quantum physics, I argue that although von Neumann continued to cherish completeness and categoricity as regulative principles, he became increasingly aware how difficult they were to achieve in quantum logic. Moreover, in von Neumann’s (and...2013-11-031h 02