The Electron and the Cosmos: From the Universe of Fragmented Objects to the Particle-World

Abstract

Particle physics is normally considered to be the cutting edge of the reductionist approach in physics: the analysis of a system in reductionist terms is considered exhaustive when all the relevant aspects of the dynamics of that system have been brought back to the level of the elementary constituents. However, the real nature of "elementary particles" remains elusive, given the well-known ontological agnosticism of quantum mechanics and quantum field theory. In this work some ideas about this nature are discussed in conceptual terms. In particular we focus on the difficulty of separating, in the concept of particle, the local aspects (the "corpuscle") from the global ones (the "cosmos"). The localization of a particle in time and space induced here and now by an interaction involves a formative causation mechanism that extends to cosmological scales. Particle physics can therefore be reconsidered as a laboratory for the exploration of the complex relationship between global and local in the natural sciences.