De Haro, Sebastian and Cinti, Enrico (2025) Dualities in Physics. [Preprint]

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Abstract

For more than half a century, dualities have been at the heart of modern physics. From quantum mechanics to statistical mechanics, condensed matter physics, quantum field theory and quantum gravity, dualities have proven useful in solving problems that are otherwise quite intractable. Being surprising and unexpected, dualities have been taken to raise philosophical questions about the nature and formulation of scientific theories, scientific realism, emergence, symmetries, explanation, understanding, and theory construction. This book discusses what dualities are, gives a selection of examples, explores the themes and roles that make dualities interesting, and highlights their most salient types. It aims to be an entry point into discussions of dualities in both physics and philosophy. The philosophical discussion emphasises three main topics: whether duals are theoretically equivalent, the view of scientific theories that is suggested by dualities (namely, a geometric view of theories), and the compatibility between duality and emergence.

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Item Type:	Preprint
Creators:	Creators Email ORCID De Haro, Sebastian s.deharo@uva.nl 0000-0002-3000-5967 Cinti, Enrico cinti.enrico@gmail.com 0000-0002-7055-6085
Keywords:	Duality, theoretical equivalence, geometric view of theories, emergence, position-momentum duality, electric-magnetic duality, Kramers-Wannier duality, Yang-Mills theory, T-duality, AdS-CFT, bulk reconstruction, solitons, monopoles.
Subjects:	General Issues > Scientific Metaphysics Specific Sciences > Computation/Information > Quantum Specific Sciences > Physics > Condensed Matter Specific Sciences > Physics > Fields and Particles Specific Sciences > Physics Specific Sciences > Physics > Quantum Gravity Specific Sciences > Physics > Quantum Field Theory Specific Sciences > Physics > Quantum Mechanics General Issues > Realism/Anti-realism General Issues > Reductionism/Holism Specific Sciences > Physics > Relativity Theory Specific Sciences > Physics > Statistical Mechanics/Thermodynamics General Issues > Structure of Theories Specific Sciences > Physics > Symmetries/Invariances
Depositing User:	Enrico Cinti
Date Deposited:	20 Sep 2025 12:25
Last Modified:	20 Sep 2025 12:25
Item ID:	26701
Subjects:	General Issues > Scientific Metaphysics Specific Sciences > Computation/Information > Quantum Specific Sciences > Physics > Condensed Matter Specific Sciences > Physics > Fields and Particles Specific Sciences > Physics Specific Sciences > Physics > Quantum Gravity Specific Sciences > Physics > Quantum Field Theory Specific Sciences > Physics > Quantum Mechanics General Issues > Realism/Anti-realism General Issues > Reductionism/Holism Specific Sciences > Physics > Relativity Theory Specific Sciences > Physics > Statistical Mechanics/Thermodynamics General Issues > Structure of Theories Specific Sciences > Physics > Symmetries/Invariances
Date:	2025
URI:	https://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/id/eprint/26701

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