ENGLISH

Experiment, Right or Wrong

By Allan Franklin

Book information

Publisher
CUP
Year
2008
ISBN
9780521064774, 0521064775
Language
english
Format
DJVU
Filesize
2 MB (2023159 bytes)
Pages
240\240
Topic
Physics
Library
Kolxo3
DPI
300
Time added
2010-07-29 05:14:56

Description

In Experiment, Right or Wrong, Allan Franklin continues his investigation of the history and philosophy of experiment presented in his previous book, The Neglect of Experiment. In this new study, Franklin considers the fallibility and corrigibility of experimental results and presents detailed histories of two such episodes: 1) the experiment and the development of the theory of weak interactions from Fermi's theory in 1934 to the V-A theory of 1957 and 2) atomic parity violation experiments and the Weinberg-Salam unified theory of electroweak interactions of the 1970s and 1980s. In these episodes Franklin demonstrates not only that experimental results can be wrong, but also that theoretical calculations and the comparison between experiment and theory can also be incorrect. In the second episode, Franklin contrasts his view of an "evidence model" of science in which questions of theory choice, confirmation, and refutation are decided on the basis of reliable experimental evidence, with that proposed by the social constructivists.

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