The Just-So Higgs Story: A Response to Adrian Wüthrich [Book Review]

Journal for General Philosophy of Science / Zeitschrift für Allgemeine Wissenschaftstheorie 43 (2):289-294 (2012)
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Abstract

I give a response to Adrian Wüthrich’s critical review of my analysis of the Higgs mechanism, in which I try to clarify some possible misunderstandings. I concede that, as Wüthrich points out, many physicists see the Higgs mechanism as the roll-over from a symmetrical potential in the initial Lagrangian to a symmetry-breaking potential, while my former analysis had basically focused on the gauge-invariant transformation of the initial Lagrangian into the intended form. My main contention, however, still is that neither Higgs story has (as yet) much explanatory power

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Holger Lyre
Otto von Guericke Universität, Magdeburg

References found in this work

The Elusive Higgs Mechanism.Chris Smeenk - 2006 - Philosophy of Science 73 (5):487-499.
Does the Higgs mechanism exist?Holger Lyre - 2008 - International Studies in the Philosophy of Science 22 (2):119-133.
Gauge symmetry breaking in gauge theories—in search of clarification.Simon Friederich - 2013 - European Journal for Philosophy of Science 3 (2):157-182.

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