Related papers: We Have Never Been Sophisticated
Along with weaving together observations, experiments, and theoretical constructs into a coherent mesh of understanding of the world around us, physics over its past five centuries has continuously refined the base concepts on which the…
In recent years, criticism of the methodology of particle physics beyond the Standard Model has increased, diagnosing too much reliance on aesthetic criteria for theory development and evaluation. Faced with several decades of experimental…
Symmetries play a central role in physics, organizing dynamics, constraining interactions, and determining the effective number of physical degrees of freedom. In parallel, modern artificial intelligence methods have demonstrated a…
The science of complexity is based on a new way of thinking that stands in sharp contrast to the philosophy underlying Newtonian science, which is based on reductionism, determinism, and objective knowledge. This paper reviews the…
The notion of rigour relevant to the practice of physics is an endogenous one. Theoretical physics has its own internal norms about mathematical practice and notions of legitimate derivations or formal objects. These norms are often…
In a recent preprint [1] Jeffrey Bub presents a discussion of neo-Bohrian interpretations of quantum mechanics, and also of von Neumann's work on infinite tensor products [2]. He rightfully writes that this work provides a theoretical…
Bohr's interpretation of quantum mechanics has been criticized as incoherent and opportunistic, and based on doubtful philosophical premises. If so Bohr's influence, in the pre-war period of 1927-1939, is the harder to explain, and the…
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.…
I argue that, contrary to the standard view, one cannot understand the structure and nature of our knowledge in physics without an analysis of the way that observers (and, more generally, measuring instruments and experimental arrangements)…
These are intended to be review notes on emergent symmetries, i.e., symmetries which manifest themselves in specific sectors of energy in many systems. The emphasis is on the physical aspects rather than computation methods. We include some…
For more than half a century, dualities have been at the heart of modern physics. From quantum mechanics to statistical mechanics, condensed matter physics, quantum field theory and quantum gravity, dualities have proven useful in solving…
Recent progress concerning regularization of supersymmetric theories is reviewed. Dimensional reduction is reformulated in a mathematically consistent way, and an elegant and general method is presented that allows to study the…
In contemporary theoretical physics, the powerful notion of symmetry stands for a web of intricate meanings among which I identify four clusters associated with the notion of transformation, comprehension, invariance and projection. While…
We review work on `decomposition,' a property of two-dimensional theories with 1-form symmetries and, more generally, d-dimensional theories with (d-1)-form symmetries. Decomposition is the observation that such quantum field theories are…
In this paper, we discuss the question whether a physical "simplification" of a model makes it always easier to study, at least from a mathematical and numerical point of view. To this end, we give different examples showing that these…
Are symmetries discovered or rather invented by humans ? The stand you may take firmly here reveals a lot of your epistemological position. Conversely, the arguments you may forge for answering to this question, or to one of its numerous…
Symmetry is an important feature of many constraint programs. We show that any symmetry acting on a set of symmetry breaking constraints can be used to break symmetry. Different symmetries pick out different solutions in each symmetry…
We present several philosophical ideas emerging from the studies of complex systems. We make a brief introduction to the basic concepts of complex systems, for then defining "abstraction levels". These are useful for representing…
The general concept of symmetry is realized in manifold ways in different realms of reality, such as plants, animals, minerals, mathematical objects or human artefacts in literature, fine arts and society. In order to arrive at a common…
Symmetry is a fundamental concept in modern physics and other related sciences. Being such a powerful tool, almost all physical theories can be derived from symmetry, and the effectiveness of such an approach is astonishing. Since many…