Earman, John (2017) The Role of Idealizations in the Aharonov-Bom Effect. [Preprint]

Preview

Text Earman AB Effect 8.24.17.pdf Download (292kB) | Preview

Abstract

On standard accounts of scientific theorizing, the role of idealizations is to facilitate the analysis of some real world system by employing a simplified representation of the target system, raising the obvious worry about how reliable knowledge can be obtained from inaccurate descriptions. The idealizations involved in the Aharonov-Bohm (AB) effect do not, it is claimed, fit this paradigm; rather the target system is a fictional system characterized by features that, though physically possible, are not realized in the actual world. The point of studying such a fictional system is to understand the foundations of quantum mechanics and how its predictions depart from those of classical mechanics. The original worry about the use of idealizations is replaced by a new one; namely, how can actual world experiments serve to confirm the AB effect if it concerns the behavior of a fictional system? Struggle with this issue helps to account for the fact that almost three decades elapsed before a consensus emerged that the predicted AB effect had received solid experimental support. Standard accounts of idealizations tout the role they play in making tractable the analysis of the target system; by contrast, the idealizations involved in the AB effect make its analysis both conceptually and mathematically challenging. The idealizations required for the AB effect are also responsible for the existence of unitarily inequivalent representations of the canonical commutation relations and of the current algebra, representations which an observer confined to the electron's configuration space could invoke to `explain' AB-type effect without the need to posit a hidden magnetic field. The goal of this paper is to bring to the attention of the philosophers of science these and other aspects of the AB effect which are neglected or inadequately treated in literature.

---

Export/Citation:

EndNote | BibTeX | Dublin Core | ASCII/Text Citation (Chicago) | HTML Citation | OpenURL

Social Networking:

Share |

---

Item Type:	Preprint
Creators:	Creators Email ORCID Earman, John jearman@pitt.edu
Additional Information:	To appear in a special issue of Synthese on Infinite Idealizations In Science
Keywords:	Idealizations ⋅ Aharonov-Bohm effect⋅ Foundations of quantum mechanics ⋅ Non-locality ⋅ Unitarily inequivalent representations
Subjects:	General Issues > Explanation General Issues > Models and Idealization Specific Sciences > Physics > Quantum Mechanics General Issues > Realism/Anti-realism
Depositing User:	John Earman
Date Deposited:	25 Aug 2017 14:53
Last Modified:	25 Aug 2017 14:53
Item ID:	13359
DOI or Unique Handle:	10.1007/s11229-017-1522-9
Subjects:	General Issues > Explanation General Issues > Models and Idealization Specific Sciences > Physics > Quantum Mechanics General Issues > Realism/Anti-realism
Date:	24 August 2017
URI:	https://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/id/eprint/13359

Monthly Views for the past 3 years

Monthly Downloads for the past 3 years

Plum Analytics

Altmetric.com

Actions (login required)

View Item