Weatherall, James (2019) Equivalence and Duality in Electromagnetism. [Preprint]
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Abstract
In this paper I bring the recent philosophical literature on theoretical equivalence to bear on dualities in physics. Focusing on electromagnetic duality, which is a simple example of S-duality in string theory, I will show that the duality fits naturally into at least one framework for assessing equivalence---that of categorical equivalence---but that it fails to meet a necessary condition for equivalence on that account. The reason is that the duality does not preserve "empirical content" in the required sense; instead, it takes models to models with "dual" empirical content. I conclude by discussing how one might react to this.
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| Item Type: | Preprint | ||||||
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| Keywords: | duality, s-duality, equivalence, categorical equivalence, empirical equivalence, electromagnetic duality | ||||||
| Subjects: | Specific Sciences > Physics Specific Sciences > Physics > Quantum Gravity Specific Sciences > Physics > Quantum Field Theory General Issues > Structure of Theories Specific Sciences > Physics > Symmetries/Invariances |
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| Depositing User: | James Owen Weatherall | ||||||
| Date Deposited: | 24 Jun 2019 15:35 | ||||||
| Last Modified: | 24 Jun 2019 15:35 | ||||||
| Item ID: | 16149 | ||||||
| Subjects: | Specific Sciences > Physics Specific Sciences > Physics > Quantum Gravity Specific Sciences > Physics > Quantum Field Theory General Issues > Structure of Theories Specific Sciences > Physics > Symmetries/Invariances |
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| Date: | 2019 | ||||||
| URI: | https://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/id/eprint/16149 |
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