Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Contributors
- Introduction
- 1 The Noether Theorems in Context
- 2 Felix Klein and Emmy Noether on Invariant Theory and Variational Principles
- 3 Moscow, Oxford, or Princeton: Emmy Noether’s Move from Göttingen (1933)
- 4 Getting to the Bottom of Noether’s Theorem
- 5 BV Quantisation in Perturbative Algebraic QFT: Fundamental Concepts and Perspectives
- 6 Divergence Invariant Variational Problems
- 7 Do Symmetries ‘Explain’ Conservation Laws? The Modern Converse Noether Theorem vs Pragmatism
- 8 Noether’s First Theorem and the Energy-Momentum Tensor Ambiguity Problem
- 9 Noether’s Theorems and Energy in General Relativity
- 10 Geometric Objects and Perspectivalism
- 11 Substantive General Covariance and the Einstein–Klein Dispute: A Noetherian Approach
- 12 Noether Charges, Gauge-Invariance, and Non-Separability
- 13 Observability, Redundancy, and Modality for Dynamical Symmetry Transformations
- 14 The Gauge Argument: A Noether Reason
- Index
14 - The Gauge Argument: A Noether Reason
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 September 2022
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Contributors
- Introduction
- 1 The Noether Theorems in Context
- 2 Felix Klein and Emmy Noether on Invariant Theory and Variational Principles
- 3 Moscow, Oxford, or Princeton: Emmy Noether’s Move from Göttingen (1933)
- 4 Getting to the Bottom of Noether’s Theorem
- 5 BV Quantisation in Perturbative Algebraic QFT: Fundamental Concepts and Perspectives
- 6 Divergence Invariant Variational Problems
- 7 Do Symmetries ‘Explain’ Conservation Laws? The Modern Converse Noether Theorem vs Pragmatism
- 8 Noether’s First Theorem and the Energy-Momentum Tensor Ambiguity Problem
- 9 Noether’s Theorems and Energy in General Relativity
- 10 Geometric Objects and Perspectivalism
- 11 Substantive General Covariance and the Einstein–Klein Dispute: A Noetherian Approach
- 12 Noether Charges, Gauge-Invariance, and Non-Separability
- 13 Observability, Redundancy, and Modality for Dynamical Symmetry Transformations
- 14 The Gauge Argument: A Noether Reason
- Index
Summary
Why is gauge symmetry so important in modern physics, given that one must eliminate it when interpreting what the theory represents? This chapter offers a discussion of the sense in which gauge symmetry can be fruitfully applied to constrain the space of possible dynamical models in such a way that forces and charges are appropriately coupled. It reviews the most well-known application of this kind, known as the ‘gauge argument’ or ‘gauge principle’; discusses its difficulties, and then reconstructs the gauge argument as a valid theorem in quantum theory. The chapter then presents what the authors take to be a better and more general gauge argument, based on Noether’s second theorem in classical Lagrangian field theory, and argues that this provides a more appropriate framework for understanding how gauge symmetry helps to constrain the dynamics of physical theories.
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- The Philosophy and Physics of Noether's TheoremsA Centenary Volume, pp. 354 - 376Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2022
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