Are the Laws of Physics Inevitable?

Franklin, Allan (2008) Are the Laws of Physics Inevitable?. In [2008] 24th Regional Conference on the History and Philosophy of Science (Boulder, Oct. 10-12, 2008).

Abstract

Social constructionists believe that experimental evidence plays a minimal role in the production
of scientific knowledge, while rationalists such as myself believe that experimental evidence is crucial
in it. As one historical example in support of the rationalist position, I trace in some detail the
theoretical and experimental research that led to our understanding of beta decay, from Enrico
Fermi’s pioneering theory of 1934 to George Sudarshan and Robert Marshak’s and Richard Feynman
and Murray Gell-Mann’s suggestion in 1957 and 1958, respectively, of the V–A theory of weak
interactions. This is not a history of an unbroken string of successes, but one that includes incorrect
experimental results, incorrect experiment-theory comparisons, and faulty theoretical analyses.
Nevertheless, we shall see that the constraints that Nature imposed made the V–A theory an
almost inevitable outcome of this theoretical and experimental research.