Bruno Nobre and Antonio Augusto Passos Videira, “Philosophy Matters: Steven Weinberg, Reductionism, and Inevitability,” Revista Portuguesa de Filosofia 74, no. 1 (2018): 249–78, DOI 10.17990/RPF/2018_74_1_0249
| Type | Journal Article |
|---|---|
| Author | Bruno Nobre |
| Author | Antonio Augusto Passos Videira |
| Rights | © 2018 Aletheia - Associação Científica e Cultural | © 2018 Revista Portuguesa de Filosofia |
| Volume | 74 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 249-278 |
| Publication | Revista Portuguesa de Filosofia |
| ISSN | 0870-5283 |
| Date | 2018 |
| DOI | 10.17990/RPF/2018_74_1_0249 |
| Language | English |
| Abstract | According to Steven Weinberg, it is the goal of elementary particle physics to search for the final laws of physics, i.e. a simple set of principles from which everything we know about physics can be derived. The main criterion that guides the search for such a set of principles is, according to the author, the sense of inevitability of physical theories, which Weinberg conflates with the idea of beauty. The theoretical physicists’ task is, in this sense, to look for constraining principles, such as symmetries and renormalizability, that increase the sense of inevitability of physical laws. It is the goal of this paper to discuss Weinberg’s arguments in favor of reductionism, as well as his conception of final theory and the associated concept of “inevitability.” |
| Date Added | 26/04/2018, 14:53:54 |
| Modified | 26/04/2018, 15:55:35 |
Barrow, John D., and Frank J. Tipler. The Anthropic Cosmological Principle. New York: Oxford University Press, 1988.
Brading, Katherine, and Elena Castellani (eds.). Symmetries in Physics: Philosophical Reflections. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003.
Brown, Laurie, and Lillian Hoddeson (eds). The Birth of Particle Physics: Based on a Fermilab Symposium. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986.
Castellani, Elena. “Reductionism, emergence, and effective field theories.” Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics, 33(2002): 256-257.
Cat, George. “The Physicist’s debates on unification in physics at the end of the 20th century.” Historical Studies in the Physical and Biological Sciences, Vol. 28, No. 2 (1998): 353-299.
Dieks, Dennis, and Henk W. de Regt. “Reduction and Understanding.” Foundations of Science 1(1998): 45-59.
Doncel, Manuel G. Symmetries in Physics (1600-1980). Barcelona: Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona, 1987.
Ellis, George. “On the philosophy of cosmology.” Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics, May 2014, Vol.46: 5-23.
Fitch, Val L., and Johnathan L. Rosner. “Elementary Particle Physics in the Second Half of the Twentieth Century.” In Twentieth Century Physics, Vol. II, edited by Laurie M. Brown, Abraham Pais, and Sir Brian Pippard, 684-692. Bristol and Philadelphia: Institute of Physics Publishing and New York: American Institute of Physics Press, 1995.
Franklin, Allan. “Are the Laws of Physics Inevitable?” Physics in Perspective 10 (2008): 182-211.
Heisenberg, Werner. “The nature of Elementary Particles.” Physics Today (March 1976): 32-39.
Mainser, Klaus. Symmetrien der Natur: Ein Handbuch zur Natur – und Wissenschaftsphilosophie. Berlin: De Gruyter, 1988.
McAllister, James W. Beauty and Revolution in Science. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1999.
Pais, Abraham. Inward Bound: Of Matter and Forces in the Physical World. New York: Oxford University Press, 1986.
Schweber Silvan S. “Quantum Field Theory: From QED to the Standard Model.” In The Cambridge History of Science, Volume 5: The Modern Physical and Mathematical Sciences, edited by Mary Joe Nye, 375-393. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002.
Weinberg, Steven. “A Response to Professor Wójcicki.” Foundations of Science 1(1998): 79-81.
Weinberg, Steven. “A Unified Physics by 2050?” Scientific American Millenium Special Issue, 281, No. 6, December 1999: 71-73.
Weinberg, Steven. “Conceptual Foundations of the Unified Theory of Weak and Electromagnetic Interactions.” In Nobel Lectures in Physics 1971-1980, edited by Stig Lundqvist, 543-559. Sweden: Chalmers University of Technology.
Weinberg, Steven. Dreams of a Final Theory. London: Hutchinson Radius, 1993.
Weinberg, Steven. “Nature Itself.” In Twentieth Century Physics, Vol. III., edited by Laurie Brown, Abraham Pais, and Sir Brian Pippard, 2033-2040. Bristol and Philadelphia: Institute of Physics Publishing and New York: American Institute of Physics Press, 1995.
Weinberg, Steven. “Newtonianism, reductionism, and the art of congressional testimony.” Nature, 330 (1987), 434-37.
Weinberg, Steven. “Reductionism redux.” In New York Review of Books, October 5, 1995. http://www.nybooks.com/articles/1995/10/05/reductionism-redux.
Weinberg, Steven. “The Great Reduction: Physics in the Twentieth Century.” In The Oxford History of the Twentieth Century, edited by M. Howard, and W. R Louis, 22-33. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1998.
Weinberg, Steven. “The search for unity: notes for a history of quantum field theory.” Daedalus, Fall, 1977, Vol.106: 17-35.
Weinberg, Steven. “The trouble with quantum mechanics.” In New York Review of Books, January 19, 2017. http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2017/01/19/trouble-with-quantum-mechanics/.
Weinberg, Steven. “Towards the Final Laws of Physics,” 61-109. In Elementary Particles and the Laws of Physics by Richard P. Feynman and Steven Weinberg. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987.
Wójcicki, Ryszard. “Physics, Theoretical Knowledge and Weinberg’s Grande Reductionism.” Foundations of Science 1(1998), 61-67.
