Symmetry, Structure and the Constitution of Objects

In this paper I focus on the impact on structuralism of the quantum treatment of objects in terms of symmetry groups and, in particular, on the question as to how we might eliminate, or better, reconceptualise such objects in structural terms. With regard to the former, both Cassirer and Eddington not only explicitly and famously tied their structuralism to the development of group theory but also drew on the quantum treatment in order to further their structuralist aims and here I sketch the relevant history with an eye on what lessons might be drawn. With regard to the latter, Ladyman has explicitly cited Castellani's work on the group-theoretical constitution of quantum objects and I indicate both how such an approach needs to be understood if it is to mesh with Ladyman's 'ontic' form of structural realism and how it might accommodate permutation symmetry through a consideration of Huggett's recent account

MesonNet 2013 International Workshop. Mini-proceedings

The mini-proceedings of the MesonNet 2013 International Workshop held in Prague from June 17th to 19th, 2013, are presented. MesonNet is a research network within EU HadronPhysics3 project (1/2012 -- 12/2014). The web page of the conference, which contains all talks, can be found at http://ipnp.mff.cuni.cz/mesonnet13Comment: 106 pages, 53 contributions. Mini-proceedings of the MesonNet 2013 International Workshop. Editors: K. Kampf, A. Kupsc, and P. Masjua

A dynamical adaptive tensor method for the Vlasov-Poisson system

A numerical method is proposed to solve the full-Eulerian time-dependent Vlasov-Poisson system in high dimension. The algorithm relies on the construction of a tensor decomposition of the solution whose rank is adapted at each time step. This decomposition is obtained through the use of an efficient modified Progressive Generalized Decomposition (PGD) method, whose convergence is proved. We suggest in addition a symplectic time-discretization splitting scheme that preserves the Hamiltonian properties of the system. This scheme is naturally obtained by considering the tensor structure of the approximation. The efficiency of our approach is illustrated through time-dependent 2D-2D numerical examples

Thomas S. Kuhn's Lowell Lectures

For more information about this item, visit https://archivesspace.mit.edu/repositories/2/archival_objects/190184Before he wrote The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, Thomas Kuhn wrote The Quest for Physical Theory--a series of eight lectures that examine the nature of scientific knowledge, how it is created, and how it changes through time. Commissioned as public lectures in 1951 by Boston's Lowell Institute, The Quest for Physical Theory adopts the historical approach Kuhn would later refine in Structure. He surveys the history of physics from Aristotle to Newton, of atomism from antiquity to modern chemistry, and he examines the concepts of fields and subtle fluids as creative metaphors that guide research. In the last four lectures, he turns to logic and philosophy, psychology, and theories of language to explain the workings of "creative science" that are typically ignored by textbooks and many influential philosophers of science