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Grand Unified Gauge Theories and the Number of Elementary Particles

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 April 2022

Robert Weingard
Robert Weingard*
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy, Rutgers University
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Abstract

Recently, Michael Redhead has argued that the grouping of particles into multiplets by grand unified gauge theories (GUT's) does not, by itself, imply an ontological reduction in the number of elementary particles. While sympathetic to Redhead's argument, in this note I argue that under certain conditions involving Kaluza-Klein theories, GUT's would provide such an ontological reduction.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 51 , Issue 1 , March 1984 , pp. 150 - 155
Copyright
Copyright © Philosophy of Science Association 1984

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Footnotes

†

This paper was part of lectures delivered at Chelsea College of the University of London and Theoretical Physics, Oxford University, June 1983.

References

de Sabbata, Venzo (1983), Unified Field Theories of More Than 4 Dimensions Including Exact Solutions, Proceedings of the 8th International Course Erice, 1982. Singapore: World Scientific.Google Scholar
Redhead, M. (1982), “Quantum Field Theory for Philosophers”, to appear in PSA Vol. 2.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Witten, E. (1981a), “Kaluza-Klein Theory and the Positive Energy Theorem”, Lectures delivered at the Banff Summer Institute on Particles and Fields, August 1981.Google Scholar
Witten, E. (1981b), “Search For a Realistic Kaluza-Klein Theory”, Nuclear Physics B186: 412–428.CrossRefGoogle Scholar