Related papers: Theoretical Equivalence and Duality
I review the philosophical literature on the question of when two physical theories are equivalent. This includes a discussion of empirical equivalence, which is often taken to be necessary, and sometimes taken to be sufficient, for…
In this paper I bring the recent philosophical literature on theoretical equivalence to bear on dualities in physics. Focusing on electromagnetic duality, which is a simple example of S-duality in string theory, I will show that the duality…
The main aim of this paper is to make a remark about the relation between (i) dualities between theories, as `duality' is understood in physics and (ii) equivalence of theories, as `equivalence' is understood in logic and philosophy. The…
I argue that, on a judicious reading of two existing criteria--one syntactic and the other semantic--dual theories can be taken to be empirically equivalent. The judicious reading is straightforward, but leads to the surprising conclusion…
In this essay I begin to lay out a conceptual scheme for: (i) analysing dualities as cases of theoretical equivalence; (ii) assessing when cases of theoretical equivalence are also cases of physical equivalence. The scheme is applied to…
A generalized view of Duality is offered as a bridge between physical sciences and the more abstract philosophical dimensions bordering on mysticism. To that end several examples of duality are first cited from from conventional physics…
In recent years philosophers of science have explored categorical equivalence as a promising criterion for when two (physical) theories are equivalent. On the one hand, philosophers have presented several examples of theories whose…
We advocate an account of dualities between physical theories: the basic idea is that dual theories are isomorphic representations of a common core. We defend and illustrate this account, which we call a Schema, in relation to symmetries.…
A bivertical classical field theory include the Newtonian mechanics and Maxwell's electromagnetic field theory as the special cases. This unification allows to recognize the formal analogies among the notions of Newtonian mechanics and…
We present a new view for duality in classical electromagnetic theory, based on the physical properties of a dual theory, eliminating the problems of the usual treatment of the subject.
We discuss the notion of duality and selfduality in the context of the dual projection operation that creates an internal space of potentials. Contrary to the prevailing algebraic or group theoretical methods, this technique is applicable…
We describe the interplay between electric-magnetic duality and higher symmetry in Maxwell theory. When the fine-structure constant is rational, the theory admits non-invertible symmetries which can be realized as composites of…
Fundamental duality is a concept which refers to two irreducible, heterogeneous principles which are in opposite and complementary of each other. The complementary principle in quantum mechanics is also praised by Bohr. This important…
We study in detail the space of perturbations of a pair of dual $N=1$ supersymmetric theories based on an $SU(N_c)$ gauge theory with an adjoint $X$ and fundamentals with a superpotential which is polynomial in $X$. The equivalence between…
We observe that for planar graphs, the geometric duality relation generates both 2-isomorphism and abstract duality. This observation has the surprising consequence that for links, the equivalence relation defined by isomorphisms of…
Duality, the equivalence between seemingly distinct quantum systems, is a curious property that has been known for at least three quarters of a century. In the past two decades it has played a central role in mapping out the structure of…
An outline is given of recent work concerning the electromagnetic duality properties of Maxwell theory on curved space-times with or without spin structures.
Many types of categorical structure obey the following principle: the natural notion of equivalence is generated, as an equivalence relation, by identifying $A$ with $B$ when there exists a strictly structure-preserving map $A \to B$ that…
After defining the concept of duality in the context of general $n$-form abelian gauge fields in 2$n$ dimensions, we show by explicit example the difference between apparent but unrealizable duality transformations, namely those in…
We discuss some aspects of the relation between dualities and gauge symmetries. Both of these ideas are of course multi-faceted, and we confine ourselves to making two points. Both points are about dualities in string theory, and both have…