ERC Project RESCALE
Coarse-grained hierarchy of physical systems across distance scales. Source for the images: Wikimedia Commons.
Physicists have developed a large variety of theories, models, mechanisms, and methods to study physical systems “scale by scale” and “across scales” since the 1950s (e.g., renormalization methods, effective theories, low-energy theorems, lattice models, scaling laws, symmetry-breaking mechanisms). The RESCALE project will explore the historical development and philosophical implications of this new theoretical practice by taking effective field theories and renormalization group methods as case studies. The project’s ambition, ultimately, is to uncover a major historical transformation in 20th-century physics practice and explore its impact on our world picture.
The Genesis of the Wilsonian Renormalization Group (in French), Revue d’Histoire des Sciences, forthcoming. [Preprint]
Open Systems Across Scales, Synthese 205: 11, 2025. [Preprint] [Journal]
Wait, Why Gauge?, The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, published online, 2023 [Preprint] [Journal] [Slides]
Drawing Scales Apart: The Origins of Wilson's Conception of Effective Field Theories, Studies in History and Philosophy of Science 90: 321-338, 2021. [Preprint] [Journal] [Slides]
Effective Theories and Infinite Idealizations: A Challenge for Scientific Realism, Synthese 198: 12107-12136, 2021. [Preprint] [Journal]
Philosophical Foundations of Effective Field Theories (with Alexei Grinbaum), The European Physical Journal A 56: 90, 2020. [Preprint] [Journal]
Renormalization Scrutinized, Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics 68C: 23-39, 2019. [Preprint] [Journal]