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Books > Science & Mathematics > Biology, life sciences > Life sciences: general issues
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From Atoms to Higgs Bosons - Voyages in Quasi-Spacetime (Hardcover)
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From Atoms to Higgs Bosons - Voyages in Quasi-Spacetime (Hardcover)
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The announcement in 2012 that the Higgs boson had been discovered
was understood as a watershed moment for the Standard Model of
particle physics. It was deemed a triumphant event in the
reductionist quest that had begun centuries ago with the ancient
Greek natural philosophers. Physicists basked in the satisfaction
of explaining to the world that the ultimate cause of mass in our
universe had been unveiled at CERN, Switzerland. The Standard Model
of particle physics is now understood by many to have arrived at a
satisfactory description of entities and interactions on the
smallest physical scales: elementary quarks, leptons, and
intermediary gauge bosons residing within a four-dimensional
spacetime continuum. Throughout the historical journey of
reductionist physics, mathematics has played an increasingly
dominant role. Indeed, abstract mathematics has now become
indispensable in guiding our discovery of the physical world.
Elementary particles are endowed with abstract existence in
accordance with their appearance in complicated equations.
Heisenberg's uncertainty principle, originally intended to estimate
practical measurement uncertainties, now bequeaths a numerical
fuzziness to the structure of reality. Particle physicists have
borrowed effective mathematical tools originally invented and
employed by condensed matter physicists to approximate the complex
structures and dynamics of solids and liquids and bestowed on them
the authority to define basic physical reality. The discovery of
the Higgs boson was a result of these kinds of strategies, used by
particle physicists to take the latest steps on the reductionist
quest. This book offers a constructive critique of the modern
orthodoxy into which all aspiring young physicists are now trained,
that the ever-evolving mathematical models of modern physics are
leading us toward a truer understanding of the real physical world.
The authors propose that among modern physicists, physical realism
has been largely replaced-in actual practice-by quasirealism, a
problematic philosophical approach that interprets the statements
of abstract, effective mathematical models as providing direct
information about reality. History may judge that physics in the
twentieth century, despite its seeming successes, involved a
profound deviation from the historical reductionist voyage to
fathom the mysteries of the physical universe.
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