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8Founder's address constraining chaosIn Jo Alyson Parker, Paul Harris & Christian Steineck (eds.), Time: Limits and Constraints, Brill. pp. 13--19. 2010.
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6Prefatory remarks to chapter fifteen reflections: Let a dialogue beginIn Jo Alyson Parker, Paul Harris & Christian Steineck (eds.), Time: Limits and Constraints, Brill. pp. 13--343. 2010.
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24Physicists use different theories to describe the world on different scales. In particular, they use the standard model of particle physics at very high energies, but move to various effective field theories, such as quantum electrodynamics, when modelling lower energy scattering processes. One way to explain this methodological fact is pragmatic in spirit. According to this view, physicists move to an effective field theory at lower energies in order to extract predictions and qualitative under…Read more
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3Chapter One–Mathematics and TimeIn Paul Harris & Michael Crawford (eds.), Time and uncertainty, Brill. pp. 11--5. 2004.
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13Time, Order, Chaos. 1998.The papers in this volume reflect much of the current unease of a world that perceives itself once more at the edge of chaos. The authors present different vistas of that experience and their inherent dialectic, expressed in numerous and ceaseless conflicts between ordering and disordering processes. They can be read as comments on the ongoing processes that lead toward greater complexity.
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35The twin origins of renormalization group conceptsStudies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 89 (C): 114-128. 2021.
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108The Real Problem with Perturbative Quantum Field TheoryBritish Journal for the Philosophy of Science 71 (2): 391-413. 2020.The perturbative approach to quantum field theory has long been viewed with suspicion by philosophers of science. This article offers a diagnosis of its conceptual problems. Drawing on Norton’s discussion of the notion of approximation I argue that perturbative QFT ought to be understood as producing approximations without specifying an underlying QFT model. This analysis leads to a reassessment of common worries about perturbative QFT. What ends up being the key issue with the approach on this …Read more
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70Spontaneous Symmertry Breaking in Finite SystemsPhilosophy of Science 83 (4): 585-605. 2016.The orthodox characterization of spontaneous symmetry breaking in statistical mechanics appeals to novel properties of systems with infinite degrees of freedom, namely, the existence of multiple equilibrium states. This raises the same puzzles about the status of the thermodynamic limit fueling recent debates about phase transitions. I argue that there are prospects of explaining the success of the standard approach to SSB in terms of the properties of large finite systems. Consequently, despite…Read more
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76Knowledge of the Quantum Domain: An Overlap StrategyBritish Journal for the Philosophy of Science. forthcoming.
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23The Voices of time: a cooperative survey of man's views of time as expressed by the sciences and by the humanities (edited book)University of Massachusetts Press. 1968.
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46Taking approximations seriously: The cases of the Chew and Nambu-Jona-Lasinio modelsStudies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 93 (C): 82-95. 2022.In this article, we offer a detailed study of two important episodes in the early history of high-energy physics, namely the development of the Chew and the Nambu-Jona-Lasinio models. Our study reveals that both models resulted from the combination of an old Hamiltonian, which had been introduced by earlier researchers, and two new approximation methods developed by Chew and by Nambu and Jona-Lasinio. These new approximation methods, furthermore, were the key component behind the models’ success…Read more
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1Toward a realist view of quantum field theoryIn Steven French & Juha Saatsi (eds.), Scientific Realism and the Quantum, Oxford University Press. 2020.
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University of WuppertalPost-doctoral Fellow
Wuppertal, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany
Areas of Specialization
Philosophy of Physical Science |
General Philosophy of Science |