Astronomer’s biography skimps on the science (original) (raw)

On the unexpected fate of scientific ideas: An archeology of the Carroll group

arXiv (Cornell University), 2022

In 1965, I published a paper, exhibiting a hitherto unknown limit of the Lorentz group, which I christened "Carroll group" because of its seemingly paradoxical physical contents. Since I saw it as more curious than relevant, I published it in French in a journal somewhat afar from the mainstream of theoretical physics at that time. It was most gratifying to witness the quite unexpected favour this paper started to enjoy half a century later, so much that a so-called "Carrollian physics" is now developing, with applications in various domains of forefront theoretical physics, such as quantum gravitation, supersymmetry, string theory, etc. I offer this narrative as an example of the very diverse time scales with which scientific ideas may develop-or not.

Observant Readers Take the Measure of Novel Approaches to Quantum Theory; Some Get Bohmed

Physics Today, 1999

In "Quantum Theory without Observers-Part One" (PHYSICS TODAY, March 1998, page 42), Sheldon Goldstein discusses our work on the decoherent histories (DH) approach to quantum mechanics and the related work of Robert Griffiths and Roland Omnès. He describes correctly many aspects of the research and makes a number of favorable remarks, such as "it seems likely that the program of DH can be brought successfully to completion." However, he seems to have misunderstood one important point, and as a result he mistakenly attributes certain "inconsistencies" to the program at its present stage. We always consider a "realm"-a set of mutually exclusive decoherent histories with probabilities adding to one-and we typically impose some further conditions on a given realm. (A "family," as discussed by Goldstein, consists of a realm and all its coarse grainings.) It is essential to restrict statements relating the probabilities of occurrence of histories to a given family containing them. (Here, we have in mind statements such as the following: If B happens at time t 2 and C at time t 3 , then A must have happened at time t 1 .) The restriction is necessary despite the fact that the numerical probability of a given history belonging to more than one family is independent of the family. This point has been stressed very strongly by Griffiths and Omnès. 1 Inconsistencies can arise if statements relating the probabilities of occurrence of histories are made while referring to different families in the course of a given argument. That is true even if the histories involve only a single time.

Critical Study: Nancy Cartwright’s The Dappled World: A Study of the Boundaries of Science

2002

Introduction. Nancy Cartwright's newest book, The Dappled World, seeks to extend the project begun in her first, How the Laws of Physics Lie.~1983! The first book provided a much needed wake-up call. Attention to how science actually writes and applies theories shows a picture much at odds with the familiar view of deduction from a few completely general natural laws. Iñ 1983:139-42! Cartwright described "physics as theatre". Just as a stage performance succeeds if it gets across the important ideas and attitudes embodied in a form that streamlines the details of real life, the theoretical descriptions provided by science succeed when, and in many ways because, they abstract from and simplify the welter of actual experience. At the other end science deals, not with "raw data", but "prepared descriptions" carefully manicured to abstract the relevant aspects of experience in a way that can smoothly be brought into contact with abstract theory.~1983: 133! It is likewise a primary motivating theme of the present book that description of theory as deduction from natural laws leaves out or hopelessly distorts how science works. For example, Cartwright objects that in interpretive work on the measurement problem in quantum mechanics ... the literature tends to live inside the mathematical structure of quantum theory and seldom asks how that theory serves to model the world. Sometimes this is even done consciously, with the division of labour as a rationale: we study physics theory, modelling is a different matter, one of applied physics. @But as a result, Cartwright suggests# ... @w#hat is left out in the usual studies in foundations of physics is not how the physics is applied, but rather, as @Willis# Lamb urges, the physics.~230! 2

Literature & Physics: Name & Form Merge in the Heart of Theory

Currently, within the Academy, there is tremendous energy circulating on the project of unifying disciplines within patterns of communication-theory. Spurred by a pervasive sense of lack of meaning/value, this project may overcome our individual zeal for greatness, opening the view to shared goodness. A fragmented vision of isolated parts results in an inability to communicate meaningful values.

Critical Notice of RIG Hughes The Structure and Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics

Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 1994

John Bell, who died in 1990, has probably done more to alter our conception of the world than anyone since Einstein. It is a measure of his contribution that the last ten years have produced such a wealth of philosophical studies devoted to the problems that he explored. Indeed, this watershed marks a turning point in the way philosophers regard quantum theory, for it is a sign that there is now broad agreement that a classical view of the universe must give way at a fundamental level. Just how much has to be given up, that is not clear, but the options have been steadily coming into focus. It is a great pity that Bell himself did not live to see a resolution to the problems that he had considered for so long m but in truth such a resolution may be a long way off yet (for Bell's collected papers, until 1986, see [1]). All of the books that have recently appeared, the one currently under review included, are in large measure the result of a timely assimilation of Bell's work. Bell in turn was responding to a paper that appeared in 1935 by Einstein, Podolsky and Rosen (EPR) in which the authors had tried to show that quantum mechanics was not a complete theory, that it left something out that was essential to any theory of the world. Bell had shown that a completion of the theory along the lines (apparently) envisaged by EPR could be compared empirically with quantum theory. Large metaphysical claims were thereby opened up for testing for the first time. To adapt an epigram of Clausewitz: physi,.~ turns out to be metaphysics carried on by other means. Almost everyone is now aware that the tests largely support quantum mechanics over EPR. There are two conclusions that are often drawn from this fact. Firstly, determin-ism is false. Secondly,, hidden variable theories must be wrong. I think that though both these claims are correct in some sense they are frequently misunderstood. But also the tests show more than this, and the more that they show is not widely appreciated. Indeed, it is arguable that in order to show just what the implications for determinism and hidden variables really are it is necessary to first show the implications for quantum mechanics itself. Only when the quantum mechanics is in focus can one see the obstacles to keeping certain metaphysical beliefs in the picture as well. In what follows I will try to give a sense of how both these sets of implications, the positive and the negative, now appear. In fact this is also the path that R.I.G. Hughes follows so the overview that I give will also provide the setting for a critical review of the introductory material in his book (which covers all but the final chapter). Following that I will examine Hughes' solution to the central problem of quantum theory. I should say at the outset that Hughes' book is excellent. In fact of all the books that have come out in the last ten years this one seems to me to be the most well written. It is elegant, beautifully clear and, in general, a delight to read. Hughes has a pedagogical advantage over most of his rivals-he seems to have really thought about the best way 236 Downloaded by [University of Auckland Library] at 16:39 12 November 2014