Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- 1 Introduction and background
- 2 Origin of the S matrix: Heisenberg's program as a background to dispersion theory
- 3 Dispersion relations
- 4 Another route to a theory based on analytic reaction amplitudes
- 5 The analytic S matrix
- 6 The bootstrap and Regge poles
- 7 An autonomous S-matrix program
- 8 The duality program
- 9 ‘Data’ for a methodological study
- 10 Methodological lessons
- Appendix
- Notes
- References
- Glossary of technical terms (from physics and from philosophy)
- Some key figures and their positions
- Index
Preface
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- 1 Introduction and background
- 2 Origin of the S matrix: Heisenberg's program as a background to dispersion theory
- 3 Dispersion relations
- 4 Another route to a theory based on analytic reaction amplitudes
- 5 The analytic S matrix
- 6 The bootstrap and Regge poles
- 7 An autonomous S-matrix program
- 8 The duality program
- 9 ‘Data’ for a methodological study
- 10 Methodological lessons
- Appendix
- Notes
- References
- Glossary of technical terms (from physics and from philosophy)
- Some key figures and their positions
- Index
Summary
A major, overarching cluster of problems central to the philosophy of science and certainly underlying much of the debate in the recent literature is how scientific theories are constructed, how they are judged or selected, and what type of knowledge they give us. There are two aspects of answers to any of these three questions: what has actually occurred according to the historical record and what is the rational status of each of these activities or of the knowledge produced. A simple schema, that is based on induction and the hypothetical-deductive method and that provides answers to the above queries, is the sequence: observation, hypothesis, prediction, confirmation. This model or picture of science has a long tradition. We can see its roots already in Bacon's (1620 (1960, pp. 43–4 and 98-100)) advocating a slow and careful ascent from particulars to generalities (Aphorisms, Bk. I, XIV, XXII, CIII–CVII). He urged use of a combination of induction and deduction in arriving at knowledge. In Bacon's ladder of axiom, one is to make modest generalizations based on specific observations and data, check these modest theories by comparing their predictions with facts once again, then combine these generalizations into more general ones, check their predictions against observations, and in this way carefully proceed to the most general axioms, theories or laws. Whewell (1857, Vol. I, p. 146) speaks of the epochs of induction, development, verification, application and extension.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Theory Construction and Selection in Modern PhysicsThe S Matrix, pp. xi - xviiPublisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1990