Particle metaphysics : a critical account of subatomic reality

Metaphysics, with which, as fate would have it, I have fallen in love but from which I can boast of only a few favours, o?ers two kinds of advantage. The ?rst is this: it can solve the problems thrown up by the enquiry of mind, when it uses reason to spy after the more hidden properties of things. But hope is here all too often disappointed by the outcome. And, on this occasion, too, satisfaction has escaped our eager grasp. [...] The second advantage of metaphysics is more consonant with the nature of the human understanding. It consists [...] in knowing what relation the question has to empirical concepts, upon which all our judgements must at all times be based. To that extent metaphysics is a science of the limits of human reason.[...] Thus, the second advantage of metaphysics is at once the least known and the most important, although it is also an advantage which is only attained at a fairly late stage and after long experience. 1 Immanuel Kant The tradition of the particle concept goes back to traditional metaphysics and ancient philosophy. The idea that matter is made up of microscopic constituent parts stems from ancient atomism. At the very beginnings of modern physics, it was taken up by Galileo, Descartes, and Newton. Newton thought that there are atoms of matter and light, but with the methods of Newtonian mechanics and optics they were beyond the reach of experiments.

Author Notes

Brigitte Falkenburg has been full professor for Theoretical Philosophy and the Philosophy of Science and Technology at the University of Dortmund

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This work could, and should, change the direction of current philosophy of science. Accomplished physicist-philosopher Falkenburg (Universitat Dortmund, Germany) has constructed a significant metaphysical framework in which to evaluate the knowledge claims of empirical particle physics. Explicitly based on Kant's architectonic, appropriate given the deterioration of 20th-century antimetaphysical logical empiricism, Falkenburg's work surveys the development of particle physics from the electron to the quark (and beyond to virtual and quasi particles). Displaying the accumulation of interacting heuristics employed to understand the ontological status of kinds of "particles," Falkenburg's modifications of Kant's perspective (here called "modal realism") allows categorization of the paralogisms of the current realism-antirealism debates, demonstrates the simple wave-particle dualism to be a dialectic illusion, delimits the implications of nonlocality, and constructs a generalized correspondence principle (derived from Bohr) that resolves Kuhn's incommensurability dilemmas with a semantic unification of competing quantum and classical characterizations. Aside from enormous philosophical fecundity, the particle physics could enhance physics courses, particularly in motivating difficult issues in scattering theory and scale invariance (there is a relevant appendix on the Buckingham Pi theorem). Urgently recommended to all philosophers of science and interested physicists. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty. P. D. Skiff Bard College

1 Scientific Realism	p. 1
1.1 Empirical Knowledge and Metaphysics	p. 4
1.2 More or Less Empiricist Demarcations	p. 11
1.3 The Real and the Actual	p. 17
1.4 Realism and Quantum Theory	p. 25
1.5 The Metaphysics of Physics	p. 31
1.6 Towards a Realism of Properties	p. 38
2 Extending Physical Reality	p. 41
2.1 Introducing Physical Quantities	p. 43
2.2 Idealization and the Experimental Method	p. 48
2.3 Discovery or Manufacture?	p. 53
2.4 Phenomena and Their Causes	p. 60
2.5 Observation Generalized	p. 65
2.6 The Empirical Reality of Physics	p. 71
3 Particle Observation and Measurement	p. 77
3.1 Two Particle Concepts	p. 80
3.2 Evidence for a Particle: Two Case Studies	p. 83
3.2.1 The Electron	p. 84
3.2.2 The Photon	p. 88
3.3 Theorizing the Observations	p. 92
3.3.1 Position Measurement	p. 94
3.3.2 Particle Tracks	p. 96
3.3.3 Scattering Events	p. 101
3.3.4 Resonances	p. 105
3.4 The Track of the Positron	p. 110
3.5 Particle Identification and Quantum Electrodynamics	p. 114
3.6 Are There Subatomic Particles?	p. 119
4 Probing Subatomic Structure	p. 125
4.1 Scattering Experiments	p. 127
4.2 Rutherford Scattering and Scale Invariance	p. 132
4.3 Pointlikeness in the Quantum Domain	p. 136
4.3.1 Classical Form Factors	p. 138
4.3.2 Relativistic Generalizations	p. 142
4.4 A Chain of Models	p. 148
4.5 Analogy with the Optical Microscope	p. 153
4.6 Looking Into The Atom	p. 158
5 Measurement and the Unity of Physics	p. 161
5.1 Incommensurability and Measurement	p. 163
5.2 A Heterogeneous Measurement Theory	p. 169
5.3 Particle Tracks	p. 174
5.3.1 Mott's Prediction of Classical Tracks	p. 175
5.3.2 Bethe's Calculation of Energy Loss	p. 178
5.3.3 How the Classical Picture Breaks Down	p. 183
5.3.4 Data Analysis in Scattering Experiments	p. 185
5.4 Building Bridges: Unifying Principles	p. 187
5.4.1 Bohr's Correspondence Principle	p. 188
5.4.2 Correspondence Generalized	p. 190
5.4.3 Other Unifying Principles	p. 194
5.5 The Scales of Physical Quantities	p. 198
5.6 Questions of Semantic Consistency	p. 202
6 Metamorphoses of the Particle Concept	p. 209
6.1 Classical Particles	p. 210
6.2 The Shift to Quantum Particles	p. 213
6.2.1 Matter Waves	p. 215
6.2.2 Light Quanta	p. 217
6.3 The Operational Particle Concept	p. 220
6.4 More Quantum Particles	p. 222
6.4.1 Field Quanta	p. 224
6.4.2 The Group Theoretical Definition	p. 229
6.4.3 Virtual Particles	p. 233
6.4.4 Quasi-Particles	p. 238
6.5 The Parts of Matter	p. 246
6.5.1 Matter Constituents Generalized	p. 246
6.5.2 The Quark Model	p. 250
6.6 What Kinds of Particles Remain?	p. 257
7 Wave-Particle Duality	p. 265
7.1 Light Particles and Matter Waves	p. 267
7.2 Wave-Particle Duality in Quantum Mechanics	p. 268
7.2.1 Born's Probability Waves	p. 269
7.2.2 Bohr's Complementarity View	p. 272
7.2.3 Heisenberg's Analogies	p. 277
7.3 Prepare Waves, Detect Particles	p. 278
7.3.1 What Makes the Difference	p. 280
7.3.2 Two Lasers, One Photon	p. 284
7.3.3 Polarized Photons	p. 285
7.4 The Double Slit Reconsidered	p. 289
7.4.1 How to Store and Erase Path Information	p. 291
7.4.2 Complementarity Without Uncertainty?	p. 296
7.4.3 Duality Relations	p. 301
7.5 Recent Which-Way Experiments	p. 305
7.6 The Causes of the Phenomena	p. 316
8 Subatomic Reality	p. 321
8.1 Scientific Realism Reconsidered	p. 322
8.2 The Meaning of Quantum Concepts	p. 324
8.3 The Mereological Particle Concept	p. 326
8.4 The Causal Particle Concept?	p. 329
8.5 Wave-Particle Duality	p. 330
8.6 Subatomic Reality: A Critical View	p. 334
Appendices
A Measurement Theory	p. 343
A.1 Empirical Relational Structures	p. 343
A.2 Physical Quantities	p. 344
A.3 The Archimedean Axiom	p. 345
A.4 The Metaphysics of Measurement	p. 345
B The II-Theorem of Dimensional Analysis	p. 349
C The Effective Cross-Section	p. 351
D Dimensional Analysis of Rutherford Scattering	p. 355
E Mereology	p. 357
E.1 Axioms of Mereology	p. 357
E.2 Mereology and Physics	p. 358
E.3 Matter Constituents	p. 360
References	p. 363
Name Index	p. 383

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