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  1. A Natural Case for Realism: Processes, Structures, and Laws.Andrew Michael Winters - 2015 - Dissertation, University of South Florida
    Recent literature concerning laws of nature highlight the close relationship between general metaphysics and philosophy of science. In particular, a person's theoretical commitments in either have direct implications for her stance on laws. In this dissertation, I argue that an ontic structural realist should be a realist about laws, but only within a non-Whiteheadean process framework. Without the adoption of a process framework, any account of laws the ontic structural realist offers will require metaphysical commitments that are at odds with (...)
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  • Conceptual problems in quantum electrodynamics: a contemporary historical-philosophical approach.Mario Bacelar Valente - unknown
    PhD dissertation addressing what can be called conceptual-mathematical anomalies in quantum electrodynamics. This work can be seen as following the line of philosophy of physics studies of quantum field theory that started to emerge in a systematic way in the early eighties of last century. One example is Teller’s work on standard quantum electrodynamics.In this work, by following a historical approach, I will return to the standard version of quantum electrodynamics, which is the only one available when we want to (...)
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  • Virtuality in Modern Physics in the 1920s and 1930s: Meaning(s) of an Emerging Notion.Jean-Philippe Martinez - 2024 - Perspectives on Science 32 (3):350-371.
    This article discusses the meaning of the notion of virtuality in modern physics. To this end, it develops considerations on the introduction and establishment in nuclear physics of two independent concepts at the turn of the 1920s and 1930s: that of the virtual state, used in the context of neutron scattering studies, and that of the virtual transition, useful for the theoretical understanding of strong nuclear forces, which forms the basis of what are now called virtual particles. Their comparative analysis (...)
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  • On the interpretation of Feynman diagrams, or, did the LHC experiments observe H → γγ?Oliver Passon - 2019 - European Journal for Philosophy of Science 9 (2):20.
    According to the received view Feynman diagrams are a bookkeeping device in complex perturbative calculations. Thus, they do not provide a representation or model of the underlying physical process. This view is in apparent tension with scientific practice in high energy physics, which analyses its data in terms of “channels”. For example the Higgs discovery was based on the observation of the decay H → γγ – a process which can be easily represented by the corresponding Feynman diagrams. I take (...)
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  • Understanding, Virtually: How Does the Synthetic Cell Matter?Daphne Broeks, Tarja Knuuttila & Henk de Regt - 2024 - Perspectives on Science 32 (3):394-414.
    This paper examines how scientific understanding is enhanced by virtual entities, focusing on the case of the synthetic cell. Comparing it to other virtual entities and environments in science, we argue that the synthetic cell has a virtual dimension, in that it is functionally similar to living cells, though it does not mimic any particular naturally evolved cell (nor is it constructed to do so). In being cell-like at most, the synthetic cell is akin to many other virtual objects as (...)
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  • Exchange Forces in Particle Physics.Gregg Jaeger - 2021 - Foundations of Physics 51 (1):1-31.
    The operation of fundamental forces in quantum field theory is explicated here as the exchange of particles, consistently with the standard methodology of particle physics. The particles involved are seen to bear little relation to any classical particle but, rather, comprise unified collections of compresent, conserved quantities indicated by propagators. The exchange particles, which supervene upon quantum fields, are neither more fundamental than fields nor replace them as has often previously been assumed in models of exchange forces. It is argued (...)
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  • Acerca del estatuto ontológico de los fonones.Hernan Lucas Accorinti & Sebastian Fortin - 2020 - Principia: An International Journal of Epistemology 24 (2).
    A los cristales se los describe como a una red de átomos que puede vibrar alrededor de su posición de equilibrio. Sin embargo, el hecho de que la energía de estas ondas esté cuantificada sugiere una analogía con el campo electromagnético. En analogía con el fotón se define al fonón. Generalmente se concibe al fonón como a una cuasi-partícula, es decir, como a un instrumento matemático útil en los cálculos pero sin una existencia propia. En este trabajo estudiamos el estatuto (...)
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  • Not Another Brick in the Wall: an Extensional Mereology for Potential Parts.Ryan Miller - manuscript
    Part is not a univocal term. Uses of parthood and composition that do not obey any supplementation principle have a long philosophical tradition and strong support from contemporary physics. We call such uses potential parts. This paper first shows why potential parts are important and incompatible with supplementation, then provides a formal mereology for such parts inspired by the path-integral approach to quantum electrodynamics.
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  • Are Virtual Quanta Nothing but Formal Tools?Mario Bacelar Valente - 2011 - International Studies in the Philosophy of Science 25 (1):39 - 53.
    The received view in philosophical studies of quantum field theory is that Feynman diagrams are simply calculational devices. Alongside this view we have the one that takes virtual quanta to be also simply formal tools. This received view was developed and consolidated in philosophy of physics by Mario Bunge, Paul Teller, Michael Redhead, Robert Weingard, Brigitte Falkenburg, and others. In this article I present an alternative to the received view.
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  • Rethinking Individuality in Quantum Mechanics.Nathan Moore - 2019 - Dissertation, University of Western Ontario
    One recent debate in philosophy of physics has centered whether quantum particles are individuals or not. The received view is that particles are not individuals and the standard methodology is to approach the question via the structure of quantum theory. I challenge both the received view and the standard methodology. I contend not only that the structure of quantum theory is not the right place to look for conditions of individuality that quantum particles may or may not satisfy, but also (...)
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  • Virtual Processes and Quantum Tunnelling as Fictions.Richard T. W. Arthur - 2012 - Science & Education 21 (10):1461-1473.
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  • How to Study Virtual Entities Historically? A Proposal.Markus Ehberger - 2024 - Perspectives on Science 32 (3):278-299.
    This paper will not present a case study of the historical development of a virtual entity. Rather, I will develop an outlook on virtual entities in the sciences and propose a corresponding method for studying them (historically). In essence, my presentation can be considered a synthesis of different observations from the history and philosophy of science and has its roots in my dissertational research on the development of the virtual particle. Starting with a reflection on the role of presentism for (...)
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  • “The language of Dirac’s theory of radiation”: the inception and initial reception of a tool for the quantum field theorist.Markus Ehberger - 2022 - Archive for History of Exact Sciences 76 (6):531-571.
    In 1927, Paul Dirac first explicitly introduced the idea that electrodynamical processes can be evaluated by decomposing them into virtual (modern terminology), energy non-conserving subprocesses. This mode of reasoning structured a lot of the perturbative evaluations of quantum electrodynamics during the 1930s. Although the physical picture connected to Feynman diagrams is no longer based on energy non-conserving transitions but on off-shell particles, emission and absorption subprocesses still remain their fundamental constituents. This article will access the introduction and the initial reception (...)
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