Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of contributors
- Preface
- Photographs of the conference
- Introduction: Conceptual issues in quantum field theory
- Part One Philosophers' interest in quantum field theory
- Part Two Three approaches to the foundations of quantum field theory
- Part Three
- Part Four Mathematics, statistics and quantum field theory
- Part Five Quantum field theory and space-time
- Part Six
- Part Seven Renormalization group
- 18 What is fundamental physics? A renormalization group perspective
- 19 Renormalization group: an interesting yet puzzling idea
- Part Eight Non-Abelian gauge theory
- Part Nine The ontology of particles or fields
- Part Ten
- Name index
- Subject index
19 - Renormalization group: an interesting yet puzzling idea
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 September 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of contributors
- Preface
- Photographs of the conference
- Introduction: Conceptual issues in quantum field theory
- Part One Philosophers' interest in quantum field theory
- Part Two Three approaches to the foundations of quantum field theory
- Part Three
- Part Four Mathematics, statistics and quantum field theory
- Part Five Quantum field theory and space-time
- Part Six
- Part Seven Renormalization group
- 18 What is fundamental physics? A renormalization group perspective
- 19 Renormalization group: an interesting yet puzzling idea
- Part Eight Non-Abelian gauge theory
- Part Nine The ontology of particles or fields
- Part Ten
- Name index
- Subject index
Summary
Very few physicists nowadays would challenge the statement that the idea of renormalization group occupies a central place in our theoretical understanding of the physical world. Not only are many crucial components of the standard model, such as asymptotic freedom and quark confinement, somewhat justified by the idea of renormalization group, but our understanding of quantum field theory itself, from the nature of parameters that characterize the system it describes and their renormalization, to the justification of effective field theories and nonrenormalizable interactions and their theoretical structures, have been substantially dependent on the idea of renormalization group. More profoundly, this idea has also shaped our understanding of the relationship between fundamental and effective theories, which in turn has suggested a hierarchical structure of the physical world. Since all these issues have been discussed elsewhere in the past few years, there is no point in repeating them again.
What I am going to do now is to lay out the difficulties that I have felt in my desire to justify the idea of renormalization group.
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- Information
- Conceptual Foundations of Quantum Field Theory , pp. 268 - 286Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1999