Miller, Michael (2020) Worldly Imprecision. [Preprint]

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Abstract

Physical theories often characterize their observables with real number precision. Many non-fundamental theories do so needlessly: they are more precise than they need to be to capture the physical matters of fact about their observables. A natural expectation is that a truly fundamental theory will require its full precision in order to exhaustively capture all of the fundamental physical matters of fact. I argue against this expectation and I show that we do not have good reason to expect that the standard of precision set by successful theories, or even by a truly fundamental theory, will match the granularity of the physical facts.

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Item Type:	Preprint
Creators:	Creators Email ORCID Miller, Michael michael.earl.miller@gmail.com 0000-0003-1144-9711
Keywords:	classical mechanics, quantum mechanics, quantum field theory, quantities, empirical success, fundamentality
Subjects:	General Issues > Scientific Metaphysics Specific Sciences > Physics > Classical Physics General Issues > Models and Idealization Specific Sciences > Physics > Quantum Field Theory Specific Sciences > Physics > Quantum Mechanics General Issues > Theory/Observation
Depositing User:	Mr. Michael E. Miller
Date Deposited:	04 Jun 2020 01:34
Last Modified:	04 Jun 2020 01:34
Item ID:	17276
Subjects:	General Issues > Scientific Metaphysics Specific Sciences > Physics > Classical Physics General Issues > Models and Idealization Specific Sciences > Physics > Quantum Field Theory Specific Sciences > Physics > Quantum Mechanics General Issues > Theory/Observation
Date:	3 June 2020
URI:	https://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/id/eprint/17276

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