Perfect Symmetries
Healey, Richard (2007) Perfect Symmetries.
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Abstract
While empirical symmetries relate situations, theoretical symmetries relate models of a theory we use to represent them. An empirical symmetry is perfect if and only if any two situations it relates share all intrinsic properties. Sometimes one can use a theory to explain an empirical symmetry by showing how it follows from a corresponding theoretical symmetry. The theory then reveals a perfect symmetry. I say what this involves and why it matters, beginning with a puzzle which is resolved by the subsequent analysis. I conclude by pointing to applications and implications of the ideas developed earlier in the paper.
| Keywords: | theoretical symmetries, empirical symmetries, gauge symmetry, relativity principle, Faraday cube, electromagnetism |
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| Subjects: | Specific Sciences: Physics: Classical Physics General Issues: Models and Idealization Specific Sciences: Physics: Symmetries/Invariances |
| ID Code: | 3744 |
| Deposited By: | Healey, Richard Andrew |
| Deposited On: | 19 December 2007 |
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