The Philosophy and Physics of Duality

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Conflicts of Interest

Identified Weaknesses

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Paper Summary

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Dualities: Secret Passages Between Different Physics Theories

This book gives a philosophical analysis of dualities in physics, understood as maps between theories. These maps are defined to be isomorphisms that preserve the values of the quantities and the dynamics. The authors discuss several well-known examples of dualities in statistical physics, quantum field theory, and string theory. They also discuss the implications of dualities for a variety of philosophical notions, such as realism, theoretical equivalence, and emergence.

Possible Conflicts of Interest

None identified

Identified Weaknesses

Imprecise terminology and primitive or under-developed concepts

Many of the dualities discussed are conjectures, and some central concepts, such as emergence, are taken to be primitive without a precise definition, or are under-developed.

Lack of mathematical discussion

Part II gives the details of the relevant physics, but a discussion of the mathematical structures involved, such as categories and modular forms, is for the most part absent, and this is arguably crucial for a philosophical discussion of dualities.

Rating Explanation

This book gives a philosophical analysis of dualities in physics. It is both historically informed, and philosophically sophisticated. The examples of dualities discussed are central and topical in modern theoretical physics, and the arguments presented are at the forefront of current philosophy of physics. The main limitation is that many of the key philosophical notions are not fully explicated, but taken to be primitive, and that the discussion could have benefitted from an exposition of some of the relevant mathematical theories.

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