Related papers: A Natural Introduction to Fine-Tuning
I reflect on some of the basic aspects of present day Beyond the Standard Model particle physics, focusing mostly on the issues of naturalness, in particular on the so-called hierarchy problem. To all of us, physics as natural science…
Fine-tuning criteria are frequently used to place upper limits on the masses of superpartners in supersymmetric extensions of the standard model. However, commonly used prescriptions for quantifying naturalness have some important…
I assess various proposals for the source of the intuition that there is something problematic about contextuality, ultimately concluding that contextuality is best thought of in terms of fine-tuning. I then argue that as with other…
Two people may claim both to be naturalists, but have divergent conceptions of basic elements of the natural world which lead them to mean different things when they talk about laws of nature, or states, or the role of mathematics in…
We present a radically new proposal for the solution of the naturalness/hierarchy problem, where the fine-tuning of the Higgs mass finds its physical explanation and the well-known multiplicative renormalization of the usual perturbative…
In this paper I propose a new principle in physics: the principle of "finiteness". It stems from the definition of physics as a science that deals (among other things) with measurable dimensional physical quantities. Since measurement…
The notion of ``fundamental constant'' is heavily theory-laden. A natural, fairly precise formulation is possible in the context of the standard model (here defined to include gravity). Some fundamental constants have profound geometric…
The sensitivity parameter is widely used in measuring the severity of fine-tuning, while many examples show it doesn't work under certain circumstances. The validity of the sensitivity is in question. We argue that the dimensional effect is…
Here we discuss direct links of the number of fundamental dimensions to the fundamental natural constants using simple arguments of dimensional analysis \corr{based on Maxwell's dimensions length (L), time (T) and mass (M) as well as the…
One of the main activities in science teaching, and in particular in Physics teaching, is not only the discussion of both modern problems and problems which solution is an urgent matter. It means that the picture of an active and alive…
The fine-tuning of the universe for intelligent life has received a great deal of attention in recent years, both in the philosophical and scientific literature. The claim is that in the space of possible physical laws, parameters and…
We argue that, when a theory of gravity and matter is endowed with (classical) conformal symmetry, the fine tuning required to obtain the cosmological constant at its observed value can be significantly reduced. Once tuned, the cosmological…
I aim to clarify the physical content and significance of naturalness. Physicists' earliest understanding of naturalness, as an autonomy of scales (AoS) requirement provides the most cogent definition of naturalness and I will assert that…
A common approach in physics and mathematics is to extend and modify theories and frameworks by considering what is often described as a `natural' extension or modification by including higher-order terms or by introducing other…
It is argued that the occurrence of disproportionately ("un-natural") large (or small) numbers, as well as deep cancellations, are comparatively natural traits of the way Nature is geared to operate in most complex systems. The idea is…
The fundamental physical theories that interpret and explain behaviour of matter in nature are dependent on several unobservables and insensibles in their construction. While a rigorous natural philosophy cannot take them for granted, there…
Selection effects in cosmology are often invoked to "explain" why some of the fundamental constant of Nature, and in particular the cosmological constant, take on the value they do in our Universe. We briefly review this probabilistic…
The reader surely knows what particles physics is about: finding building blocks of nature that appear elementary at a given time and study their interactions - so why in the world this essay? The problem is how to arrive at a fundamental…
We propose an approach to explaining why naive large quantum fluctuations are not the right estimate for the cosmological constant. We argue that the universe is in a superposition of many vacua, in such a way that the resulting…
Scientific principles can undergo various developments. While philosophers of science have acknowledged that such changes occur, there is no systematic account of the development of scientific principles. Here we propose a template for…