Abstract

I regret to inform you that Allan Franklin is unable to be here because of the consequences of his collision with a truck in Boulder, Colorado several weeks ago. The three of us have decided to proceed with the symposium in his honor, even though it is now missing its fulcrum. The original point of the symposium was to have an informed discussion of two versions of atomic parity-violation experiments, versions that embody opposed philosophical conceptions of the experiments. The first conception is embodied in Andy Pickering’s account in his Constructing Quarks, an account that is explicitly criticized by Allan Franklin’s more recent discussion in his Experiment, right or wrong (Pickering 1984; Franklin 1990). The symposium would have brought this confrontation into focus, with Franklin’s presentation of his critique followed by Pickering’s rejoinder at this symposium, both of them in sufficient command of the detailed history of the atomic parity-violation experiments to allow for the possibility of a useful exchange of differences of opinion.