The Varieties of Explanations in the Higgs Sector - a podcast by MCMP Team

Michael Stöltzner (South Carolina) gives a talk at the MCMP Colloquium (19 November, 2014) titled "The Varieties of Explanations in the Higgs Sector". Abstract: I argue that there is no single universal conception of scientific explanation that is consistently employed throughout Higgs physics – ranging from the successful search for a standard model (SM) Higgs particle and the hitherto unsuccessful searches beyond it, to phenomenological model builders in the Higgs sector and theoretical physicists interested in the Higgs mechanism. But the coexistence of deductive-statistical, unificationist, model-based, and statistical-relevance explanations does not amount to a fragmentation of the discipline, but allows elementary particle physicists to simultaneously pursue a plurality of research strategies and keep the field together by joint convictions about the SM and shared explanatory ideals. Most importantly, the SM represents both a successful explanation and contains aspects in need of further explanation. Such explanatory ideals typically appear as stories or narratives motivating the different models and linking them to the whole of the discipline.

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