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AGPhil: Arbeitsgruppe Philosophie der Physik

AGPhil 3: Philosophy of Physics

AGPhil 3.2: Vortrag

Dienstag, 21. März 2023, 18:00–18:30, JAN/0027

Feynman Diagrams providing understanding as Toy Models — •Karla Weingarten — Munich Center for Mathematical Philosophy, LMU Munich

Both in high school and undergraduate university courses, Feynman Diagrams are used to teach students about the mode of operation of elementary particle interactions. This is not for their mathematical rigor or theoretical beauty but for the accessibility and clarity of the pictorial representation. This decoupling of lower-order diagrams from the theoretical framework of perturbation theory is common practice in pedagogical settings, although they do not factually represent the underlying physical mechanisms. This raises the question of whether Feynman Diagrams, taken as literal graphical diagrams, can facilitate some form of understanding, which in most accounts requires the explanatory assumptions and models to be (at least approximately) true. This criterion can be weakened to design a concept of understanding that accommodates so-called toy models, highly idealised and simplified models intended to provide easier access to complex issues. I argue that the use of Feynman Diagrams as pictorial representations can be considered as a case of such a toy model. Although Feynman diagrams cannot (realistically) be considered to present how-actually understanding, I show that as toy models, they can indeed facilitate how-possibly understanding, emphasising their great use in learning particle physics.