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Reflections on Parity Nonconservation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 April 2022

Nick Huggett
Nick Huggett*
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy, University of Illinois at Chicago
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Abstract

This paper considers the implications for the relational-substantival debate of observations of parity nonconservation in weak interactions, a much neglected topic. It is argued that ‘geometric proofs’ of absolute space, first proposed by Kant (1768), fail, but that parity violating laws allow ‘mechanical proofs’, like Newton's laws. Parity violating laws are explained and arguments analogous to those of Newton's Scholium are constructed to show that they require absolute spacetime structure—namely, an orientation—as Newtonian mechanics requires affine structure. Finally, it is considered how standard relationist responses to Newton's argument might respond to the new challenge of parity nonconservation.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 67 , Issue 2 , June 2000 , pp. 219 - 241
Copyright
Copyright © 2000 by the Philosophy of Science Association

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Footnotes

†

Send requests for reprints to the author, Department of Philosophy, MC 267, 1421 University Hall, 601 South Morgan Street, University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, IL 60607-7114.

‡

This paper benefitted from comments from Carl Hoeffer, Jon Jarrett, Tim Maudlin, Mark Vuletic, and an anonymous referee. I also received useful feedback from presentations at the annual philosophy of science conference at the Inter-University Centre in Dubrovnik and to the Belgian Society for Logic and Philosophy of Science. I thank the Institute for the Humanities at UIC for a fellowship during which this work was completed.

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