Pauli’s exclusion principle: the origin and validation of a scientific principle

Michela Massimi0521839114, 9780521839112

There is hardly another principle in physics with wider scope of applicability and more far-reaching consequences than Pauli’s exclusion principle. This book explores the principle’s origin in the atomic spectroscopy of the early 1920s, its subsequent embedding into quantum mechanics, and later experimental validation with the development of quantum chromodynamics. Reconstruction of the crucial historic episode provides an excellent foil to reconsider Kuhn’s view on incommensurability. The variety of themes skillfully interwoven will appeal to philosophers, historians, scientists and anyone interested in philosophy.

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Table of contents :
Cover……Page 1
Half-title……Page 3
Title……Page 5
Copyright……Page 6
Dedication……Page 7
Contents……Page 9
Note on Translation……Page 12
Preface……Page 13
Epigraph……Page 16
Introduction……Page 17
1.1 Introduction……Page 23
1.2 From Poincaré’s conventionalism to Popper and Lakatos on the nature of the exclusion principle……Page 25
1.3 From Reichenbach’s coordinating principles to Friedman’s relativized a priori principles……Page 29
1.4 Constitutive versus regulative……Page 37
1.4.1 Kant on the regulative principle of systematicity……Page 41
1.4.2 Ernst Cassirer and the architectonic of scientific knowledge……Page 44
1.5 The exclusion principle: a Kantian perspective……Page 47
2.1.1 Atomic spectra and the Bohr–Sommerfeld theory of atomic structure……Page 51
2.1.2 The doublet riddle and the riddle of statistical weights……Page 59
2.1.3 The anomalous Zeeman effect and the mystery of half-integral quantum numbers……Page 63
2.2.1 Niels Bohr: nothing but a ‘non-mechanical constraint’?……Page 68
2.2.2 Heisenberg’s first core model: the sharing principle. Does success justify the means?……Page 71
2.2.3 Heisenberg’s second core model: the branching rule and a new quantum principle……Page 76
2.2.4 Pauli: from the electron’s Zweideutigkeit to the exclusion rule……Page 81
2.3 The turning point……Page 89
3.1 The revolutionary transition from the old quantum theory to the new quantum theory……Page 94
3.2.1 Kuhn on scientific lexicons: incommensurability as untranslatability……Page 97
3.2.2 Kuhn’s argument for untranslatability and Hacking’s taxonomic solution to the new-world problem……Page 102
3.2.3 Lexical taxonomies: the Aristotelian tradition and the nominalist criticism……Page 107
3.2.4 How should we read lexical taxonomies? A Kantian reading……Page 109
3.2.5 Reintroducing history in scientific lexicons: a lesson from the crisis of the old quantum theory……Page 113
3.3.1 The electron’s Zweideutigkeit and Pauli’s exclusion rule as the conclusions of two nested demonstrative inductions……Page 119
4.1 Introduction……Page 128
4.2 Pauli’s rule prescribes a new exclusion: Fermi–Dirac statistics……Page 131
4.3 The non-relativistic quantum mechanics of the magnetic electron: Pauli’s spin matrices……Page 135
4.4 Group theory enters the scene……Page 138
4.5 From quantum electrodynamics to quantum field theory: the exclusion principle re-expressed in terms of anticommutation relations……Page 139
4.6 Towards relativistic quantum mechanics: the Dirac equation for the electron and the hole theory……Page 144
4.7 Pauli against the hole theory: the Pauli–Weisskopf ‘anti-Dirac’ paper……Page 149
4.9 Pauli’s final proof of the spin–statistics theorem……Page 154
4.10 How Pauli’s rule gained the status of a scientific principle……Page 157
5.1 Introduction……Page 161
5.2 From the eightfold way to quarks……Page 163
5.3.1 Revoking the strict validity of the exclusion principle: quarks as parafermions……Page 170
5.3.1.1 From parons to experimental tests of the exclusion principle……Page 173
5.3.2 Retaining the exclusion principle: coloured quarks and quantum chromodynamics……Page 178
5.3.2.1 Deep inelastic lepton–hadron scattering and scaling violations……Page 181
5.3.2.2 Between gauge invariance and renormalizability: the neutral pion decay and the Adler–Bell–Jackiw anomaly……Page 183
5.3.2.3 The ratio of cross-sections for hadron and muon production and a new quark flavour……Page 186
5.4 The Duhem–Quine thesis: epistemological holism and the validation of the exclusion principle……Page 188
5.4.1 The validating role of negative evidence……Page 191
5.4.2 Quinean underdetermination and the rationality of retaining a threatened principle……Page 195
Conclusion……Page 200
References……Page 205
Index……Page 220