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84From a boson to the standard model Higgs: a case study in confirmation and model dynamicsSynthese 198 (Suppl 16): 3779-3811. 2019.Our paper studies the anatomy of the discovery of the Higgs boson at the Large Hadron Collider and its influence on the broader model landscape of particle physics. We investigate the phases of this discovery, which led to a crucial reconfiguration of the model landscape of elementary particle physics and eventually to a confirmation of the standard model. A keyword search of preprints covering the electroweak symmetry breaking sector of particle physics, along with an examination of physicists …Read more
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782Bottoms up: The Standard Model Effective Field Theory from a model perspectiveStudies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 92 129-143. 2022.Experiments in particle physics have hitherto failed to produce any significant evidence for the many explicit models of physics beyond the Standard Model (BSM) that had been proposed over the past decades. As a result, physicists have increasingly turned to model-independent strategies as tools in searching for a wide range of possible BSM effects. In this paper, we describe the Standard Model Effective Field Theory (SM-EFT) and analyse it in the context of the philosophical discussions abou…Read more
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27Simplicity in the Sciences and Humanities: Report on the Bonn “Simplicities and Complexities” ConferenceJournal for General Philosophy of Science / Zeitschrift für Allgemeine Wissenschaftstheorie 51 (3): 491-497. 2020.A report on the 2019 Bonn “Simplicities and Complexities” Conference, organized by "The Epistemology of the Large Hadron Collider" research unit.
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41Model-groups as scientific research programmesEuropean Journal for Philosophy of Science 10 (1): 1-24. 2020.Lakatos’s methodology of scientific research programmes centres around series of theories, with little regard to the role of models in theory construction. Modifying it to incorporate model-groups, clusters of developmental models that are intended to become new theories, provides a description of the model dynamics within the search for physics beyond the standard model. At the moment, there is no evidence for BSM physics, despite a concerted search effort especially focused around the standard…Read more
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72Doubts for Dawid's non-empirical theory assessmentStudies in History and Philosophy of Science Part B: Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics 63 128-135. 2018.Dawid's account of non-empirical theory assessment is meant to complement traditional theory assessments. I contend that his arguments don't provide support for this account. His three arguments, the no alternatives argument, the unexpected explanatory connections argument, and the meta-inductive argument from prior theories' success, are all problematic, particularly for an assessment of string theory. In particular, I argue that the meta-inductive argument is idle, because it's role in underwr…Read more
Columbia, South Carolina, United States of America
Areas of Specialization
1 more
Particle Physics |
Philosophy of Physics, Misc |
Research Programs |
Nonempirical Virtues |
The Nature of Models |
Philosophy of Physics, General Works |