Senior scholars, early-career researchers, and students from various academic disciplines gathered in Wuppertal for the workshop on “Methodological Transformations in Fundamental Physics” from September 16 to 18. The event, organized by our Research Training Group, provided an interdisciplinary platform to explore the dynamic and plastic character of “the” scientific method in fundamental physics.
Participants presented their latest research in their respective fields (philosophy of science, philosophy of physics, history and sociology of science, and social epistemology).
On the first day, presentations and discussions focused on the nature of evidence and the challenges of methods for testing and confirming theories in the field. Keynote presentations on the nature and limits of eliminative reasoning by Chris Smeenk (Western University) and on meta-empirical theory assessment in relation to special relativity by Richard Dawid (Stockholm University) set the stage for contributions on the observation of binary black hole mergers (Sarwar Ahmed), consilience arguments about the Hawking effect (Erik Curiel), and gauge invariance considerations in fundamental physics (Guy Hetzroni). Our principal investigator, Radin Dardashti, discussed issues surrounding the notion of scientific discovery.
On the second and third days, the workshop gradually shifted towards heuristics and open-endedness in scientific methodology, starting with a keynote on knowledge transfer in theory building by Elena Castellani (University of Florence) and Emilia Margoni (University of Geneva). The talk was followed by presentations on social dilemmas in high-energy physics (Lucas Gautheron), and on the roles of theoretical virtues and economical considerations in pursuit worthiness assessment (Enno Fischer & Patrick M. Duerr).
The 2nd day’s afternoon session was opened with a historical perspective by Helge Kragh (University of Copenhagen), followed by a number of presentations assessing statements of progress in cosmology (Patrick M. Duerr & Finnur Dellsén) and pursuit-worthiness in relation to the dark matter hypothesis (Antonis Antoniou) or the LCDM model (Anastasiia Lazutkina). As part of this session focused on cosmology, Mauro Dorato discussed conceptual issues regarding the concept of cosmological time.
The last day began with a keynote by Mike D. Schneider (University of Missouri) on creativity and un-creativity in contemporary fundamental physics research. It was followed by a talk by Helen Meskhidze on solution-generating techniques in general relativity, and ended with a historical overview of string theory research and its evolving relationship with physical reality (Robert van Leeuwen).
These talks sparked lively debates regarding pursuit-worthiness, continuities and discontinuities in fundamental physics, and the future of the field in general. More generally, the workshop provided an opportunity for both young and established scholars, from all over Europe and North America, to comment on each others’ works and engage deeply with perspectives from different fields and areas of fundamental physics.
