In this paper, I propose an account that accommodates the possibility of experimentation being exploratory in cases where the procedures necessary to plan and perform an experiment are dependent on the theoretical accounts of the phenomena under investigation. The present account suggests that experimental exploration requires the implementation of an exploratory procedure that serves to extend the range of possible outcomes of an experiment, thereby enabling it to pursue its objectives. Furthermore, I argue that the present account subsumes the notion of exploratory experimentation, which is often attributed in the relevant literature to the works of Friedrich Steinle and Richard Burian, as a particular type of experimental exploration carried out in the special cases where no well-formed theoretical framework of the phenomena under investigation (yet) exists. I illustrate the present account in the context of the ATLAS experiment at CERN's Large Hadron Collider, where the long-sought Higgs boson has been discovered in 2012. I argue that the data selection procedure carried out in the ATLAS experiment illustrates an exploratory procedure in the sense suggested by the present account. I point out that this particular data selection procedure is theory-laden in that its implementation is crucially dependent on the theoretical models of high energy particle physics which the ATLAS experiment is aimed to test. However, I argue that the foregoing procedure is not driven by the above-mentioned theoretical models, but rather by a particular data selection strategy. I conclude that the ATLAS experiment illustrates that, contrary to what previous studies have suggested, there are cases of experimentation in which exploration serves to test theoretical predictions and that theory-ladenness plays an essential role in experimentation being exploratory.
ArgumentIn the theory-dominated view of scientific experimentation, all relations of theory and experiment are taken on a par; namely, that experiments are performed solely to ascertain the conclusions of scientific theories. As a result, different aspects of experimentation and of the relation of theory to experiment remain undifferentiated. This in turn fosters a notion of theoryladenness of experimentation (TLE) that is too coarse-grained to accurately describe the relations of theory and experiment in scientific practice. By contrast, in this article, I suggest that TLE should be understood as an umbrella concept that has different senses. To this end, I introduce a three-fold distinction among the theories of high-energy particle physics (HEP) as background theories, model theories and phenomenological models. Drawing on this categorization, I contrast two types of experimentation, namely, "theory-driven" and "exploratory" experiments, and I distinguish between the "weak" and "strong" senses of TLE in the context of scattering experiments from the history of HEP. This distinction enables to identify the exploratory character of the deep-inelastic electron-proton scattering experimentsperformed at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC) between the years 1967 and 1973-thereby shedding light on a crucial phase of the history of HEP, namely, the discovery of "scaling", which was the decisive step towards the construction of quantum chromo-dynamics (QCD) as a gauge theory of strong interactions.
I examine the construction process of the Higgs mechanism and its subsequent use by Steven Weinberg to formulate the electroweak theory in particle physics. I characterize the development of the Higgs mechanism to be a historical process that is guided through analogies drawn to the theories of solid-state physics and that is progressive through diverse contributions from a number of physicists working independently. I also offer a detailed comparative study that analyzes the similarities and differences in these contributions. IntroductionThe concept of "spontaneous symmetry breaking" (SSB) as used in (relativistic) quantum field theory was inspired from the vacuum-structure of the Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieffer(BCS) theory of superconductivity in solid-state physics. 1 As physicists Yoichiro Nambu 2 and Giovanni JonaLasinio 3 once remarked, the integration of SSB into the theoretical framework of quantum field theory illustrates a case of "cross-fertilization" between solid-state physics and particle physics through the sharing of a physical concept. The integration process of SSB has been discussed in 1 Barden et al. 1957 2 a joint paper 4 by Laurie Brown and Tian Yu Cao, which has also accounted for the emergence of SSB as a physical concept and its early use in solid-state physics. What constitutes the final step in this integration process is the construction in the sixties of what is today referred to as "Higgs mechanism" in the literature of modern physics. This was achieved through diverse contributions from different physicists working independently. Even though the aforementioned paper by Brown and Cao is very helpful and thorough in many respects, it does not engage in a detailed examination of the similarities and the differences that exist between the approaches taken in these contributions. 5 Nor does it discuss their convergence to the Higgs mechanism as well as to the formulation of the electroweak theory by Steven Weinberg in 1967. All these as-yetunaddressed historical issues call for a critical study of the development of the Higgs mechanism that is currently missing from the literature of history and philosophy of modern physics. 6 In the present paper, I shall undertake a detailed comparative study of the works that contributed to the development of the Higgs mechanism. Moreover, in parallel to this discussion, I shall also trace the development of the electroweak theory as the unified theory of electromagnetic and weak forces.The plan of the present paper is roughly as follows. In Section 2, I shall give a short summary of the failure of the V-A theory of weak interactions. In Section 3, I shall dwell on Glashow's work on a unified theory of weak and electromagnetic forces. I shall also discuss the zero-mass problem of the Yang-Mills theory and how it plagued Glashow's work. In Section 4, I 3 shall examine in detail the construction process of the Higgs mechanism that solved the zeromass problem. In Section 5, I shall describe the formulation of the electroweak theory by Weinberg on t...
Abstract:We examine physicists' charge of ad hocness against the Higgs mechanism in the standard model of elementary particle physics. We argue that even though this charge never rested on a clear-cut and well-entrenched definition of "ad hoc", it is based on conceptual and methodological assumptions and principles that are well-founded elements of the scientific practice of high-energy particle physics. We further evaluate the implications of the recent discovery of a Higgs-like particle at the CERN's Large Hadron Collider for the charge of ad hocness against the Higgs mechanism."Of course our model has too many arbitrary features for these predictions to be taken very seriously [鈥" (Weinberg 1967(Weinberg , pp. 1265(Weinberg -1266
According to the hierarchy of models (HoM) account of scientific experimentation developed by Patrick Suppes and elaborated by Deborah Mayo, theoretical considerations about the phenomena of interest are involved in an experiment through theoretical models that in turn relate to experimental data through data models, via the linkage of experimental models. In this paper, I dispute the HoM account in the context of present-day high-energy physics (HEP) experiments. I argue that even though the HoM account aims to characterize experimentation as a model-based activity, it does not involve a modeling concept for the process of data acquisition, and it thus fails to provide a model-based characterization of the theory-experiment relationship underlying this process. In order to characterize the foregoing relationship, I propose the concept of a model of data acquisition and illustrate it in the case of the ATLAS experiment at CERN's Large Hadron Collider, where the Higgs boson was discovered in 2012. I show that the process of data acquisition in the ATLAS experiment is performed according to a model of data acquisition that specifies and organizes the experimental procedures necessary to select the data according to a predetermined set of selection criteria. I also point out that this data acquisition model is theory-laden, in the sense that the underlying data selection criteria are determined by considering the testable predictions of the theoretical models that the ATLAS experiment is aimed to test. I take this sense of theory-ladenness to indicate that the relationship between the procedures of the ATLAS experiment and the theoretical models of the phenomena of interest is first established, prior to the formation of data models, through the data acquisition model of the experiment, thus not requiring the intermediary of other types of models as suggested by the HoM account. I therefore conclude that in the context of present-day HEP experiments, the HoM account does not consistently extend to the process of data acquisition so as to include models of data acquisition.
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