The Birth of String Theory by Cappelli et al. tells the story of the beginnings of string theory and of the evolutionary process it has undergone from its origins in S-matrix theory to its current status as a candidate unification theory. The book is intended for an audience of students and researchers in physics, as well as historians and philosophers of science with some background in quantum field theory.In the 50s and early 60s, theoretical particle physics focused on formulating a (...) theory to explain the strong interactions. Due to issues with the application of perturbative quantum field theory to the strong interactions, theoretical particle physicists shifted their attention to Heisenberg’s ‘S-matrix’ theory, which focused solely on observable quantities. This endeavour led in 1968 to the breakthrough of the famous ‘Veneziano amplitude’, which along with the Dolen–Horn–Schmid duality between the s- and the t-channels led to the dual resonance model . Following Ve .. (shrink)

This paper argues against the view that the standard explanation of phase transitions in statistical mechanics may be considered a causal explanation, a distortion that can nevertheless successfully represent causal relations.

This book presents a collection of studies by Romanian philosophers, addressing foundational issues currently debated in contemporary philosophy of science. It offers a historical survey of the tradition of scientific philosophy in Romania. It examines some problems in the foundations of logic, mathematics, linguistics, the natural and social sciences. Among the more specific topics, it discusses scientific explanation, models, and mechanisms, as well as memory, artifacts, and rules of research. The book is useful to those interested in the philosophy of (...) real science, but also to those interested in Romanian philosophy. (shrink)