Exploring the "dark ages" of particle physics: isospin, strangeness and the construction of physical-mathematical concepts in the pre-Standard-Model era (ca. 1950-1965)

探索粒子物理学的“黑暗时代”：同位旋、奇异性以及前标准模型时代（约 1950-1965 年）的物理数学概念的构建

基本信息

批准号：
244764109
负责人：
Privatdozentin Dr. Arianna Borrelli
金额：
--
依托单位：
Lehrstuhl für Wissenschaftstheorie und Technikphilosophie
依托单位国家：
德国
项目类别：
Research Grants
财政年份：
2013
资助国家：
德国
起止时间：
2012-12-31 至 2017-12-31
项目状态：
已结题

来源：
https://gepris.dfg.de/gepris/projekt/244764109?language=en
关键词：
Exploring dark ages particle physics

项目摘要

The project proposes a systematic investigation of knowledge production in particle physics of the 1950s and '60s, when unexpected experimental results came to be conceptualized in terms of "new" particles endowed with "new" properties, among them "isospin" and "strangeness". These and other physical-mathematical concepts later came to be embedded into the Standard Model, when it emerged in the 1970s as the first - and to date most successful - theory of particle phenomena. Since then, the pre-Standard-Model era has been regarded as a sort of "dark ages" of particle physics: a long phase of theoretical uncertainty and confusing experimental variety which ended only with the rise of the Standard Model. Aimed at a critical reassessment of this view, the project constitutes the first thorough historical analysis studying the conceptual developments of the 1950s and '60s in their own right, and not simply as a "prelude" to the Standard Model. With an innovative historical-philosophical focus on the formation of concepts rather than on the construction of theories, the project explores the dynamics of formation and development of isospin and strangeness, which has so far been dealt with only in an off-hand way. Those two new quantum numbers indeed "constituted new and empirically useful analytic tools with which to make sense of the properties of the many new particles discovered in the 1950s" (Pickering). However, the conceptualization of experimental results in terms of isospin and strangeness was no purely empirically motivated theoretical invention, but rather a complex dynamical process both driven by experimental results and stimulating new experimental research, both bearing on diverse theoretical and conceptual traditions and forming new ones at the same time. It should be carefully contextualised and explored in its relations to the practices employed both by theorists and experimentalists. Regarding the formation of concepts of isospin and strangeness as the locus of multilayered interplay of theoretical and experimental practices, the proposed project will go beyond the limits of a disciplinary history and contribute to the wider historical-philosophical discussion on the dynamics of concept formation and on the relationship of theory and experiment in modern science.

该项目提出了对1950年代和60年代粒子物理学知识产生的系统研究，当时意外的实验结果是通过赋予“新“新属性”的“新”粒子的概念化的，其中包括“ isospin”和“ nexteness”。这些和其他物理数学概念后来被嵌入到标准模型中，当时它在1970年代作为第一个 - 迄今为止最成功的 - 粒子现象理论出现时。从那时起，预标准模型时代就被视为粒子物理学的一种“黑暗时代”：理论不确定性的长期和令人困惑的实验变体，仅以标准模型的兴起结束。为了重新评估这种观点，该项目构成了第一个彻底的历史分析，该分析本身就研究了1950年代和60年代的概念发展，而不仅仅是对标准模型的“前奏”。该项目以创新的历史 - 哲学关注于概念的形成而不是建立理论，探索了等异教和陌生感的形成和发展的动力，到目前为止，该动态仅以交通方式处理。这两个新的量子数确实“构成了新的且经验上有用的分析工具，以理解1950年代发现的许多新粒子的特性”（Pickering）。然而，从同义和陌生方面的实验结果概念化并不是纯粹是出于经验动机的理论发明，而是由实验结果驱动的复杂动力学过程，又是由实验结果驱动的，又刺激了新的实验研究，这既涉及多样的理论和概念传统，又与同时形成新的传统有关。它应该在与理论家和实验者所采用的实践的关系中仔细化和探索。关于形成等异种和陌生的概念，作为理论和实验实践的多层相互作用的基因座，拟议的项目将超出纪律历史的范围，并为更广泛的历史 - 哲学讨论促进了关于概念形成的动态以及现代科学的理论与实验的关系。