Oct 2, 2023 03:55 AM
(This post was last modified: Oct 2, 2023 04:02 AM by C C.)
https://iai.tv/articles/we-need-new-phys..._auid=2020
INTRO: An ancient idea is still alive in the most advanced theory of physics today: that matter consists of a set of ultimate particles. But the obsession with going beyond the Standard Model and finding more and more particles to solve the problems of physics is victim to a theoretical and experimental framework that has run its course. Sabine Hossenfelder, Gavin Salam, and Bjørn Ekeberg debate the future of particle physics at HowTheLightGetsIn festival.
EXCERPT: ... particles are also experimental phenomena, as Bjørn Ekeberg reminded us. They are only ever detected under specific experimental conditions, and most often not directly but through their effects. On top of that, experiments and observations are also theory-laden.
We need a certain concept of “particle” to set up an experiment looking for one in the first place, even if we expect the experiment to tell us whether that particle exists and what it does. Particles then are “experimental helpers” not units of nature. The ontology of particles only makes sense only within a certain experimental (and theoretical) context – that of particle colliders.
The concept of particle then is “not what most people think of as a particle”, and perhaps we should even give up on the very idea of ultimate, indivisible units of matter, Ekeberg argued. When we probe deeper into the structure of matter we don’t find indivisible stuff – we find fields and energy.
But if the behaviour of particles we’re observing in experiments is theory-dependent, and the concept “particle” is itself a theoretical construct, can we say that our theory of particles, the Standard Model, is really a representation of reality? Hossenfelder and Salam were in agreement on this – the Standard Model might be a good description of reality as we experience it through experiments, but whether it is a true representation of reality, whether particles really exist “out there” and are not simply a useful theoretical tool, is not something that can be answered by physics.
The realism – anti-realism debate remains firmly in philosophical terrain... (MORE - missing details)
INTRO: An ancient idea is still alive in the most advanced theory of physics today: that matter consists of a set of ultimate particles. But the obsession with going beyond the Standard Model and finding more and more particles to solve the problems of physics is victim to a theoretical and experimental framework that has run its course. Sabine Hossenfelder, Gavin Salam, and Bjørn Ekeberg debate the future of particle physics at HowTheLightGetsIn festival.
EXCERPT: ... particles are also experimental phenomena, as Bjørn Ekeberg reminded us. They are only ever detected under specific experimental conditions, and most often not directly but through their effects. On top of that, experiments and observations are also theory-laden.
We need a certain concept of “particle” to set up an experiment looking for one in the first place, even if we expect the experiment to tell us whether that particle exists and what it does. Particles then are “experimental helpers” not units of nature. The ontology of particles only makes sense only within a certain experimental (and theoretical) context – that of particle colliders.
The concept of particle then is “not what most people think of as a particle”, and perhaps we should even give up on the very idea of ultimate, indivisible units of matter, Ekeberg argued. When we probe deeper into the structure of matter we don’t find indivisible stuff – we find fields and energy.
But if the behaviour of particles we’re observing in experiments is theory-dependent, and the concept “particle” is itself a theoretical construct, can we say that our theory of particles, the Standard Model, is really a representation of reality? Hossenfelder and Salam were in agreement on this – the Standard Model might be a good description of reality as we experience it through experiments, but whether it is a true representation of reality, whether particles really exist “out there” and are not simply a useful theoretical tool, is not something that can be answered by physics.
The realism – anti-realism debate remains firmly in philosophical terrain... (MORE - missing details)
