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Dept of Philosophy Job Talk
STRUCTURE AND EQUIVALENCE IN YANG-MILLS THEORY
Date: Wednesday, January 23rd
Time: 4:00 pm
Place: Memorial Union, Old Madison Room
Speaker: Sarita Rosenstock University of California, Irvine, University of California, Irvine Department of Logic and Philosophy of Science
Abstract: Scientists and philosophers often invoke
parsimony as a theoretical virtue alongside
descriptive accuracy, and aim to minimize the
amount of structure present in mathematical
formalisms used to represent physical systems. I
present a proposal for formalizing structure
comparison in physics using category theory,
which can be thought of as the mathematical
theory of structure. I show how this method can
be used to compare alternative formulations of
Yang-Mills theory (which underlies modern
particle physics), and evaluate claims by
philosophers and physicists regarding their
relative structure.
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