Project description
Rethinking physics across scales
The search for a final theory in physics has long shaped the field, guiding both theoretical and philosophical efforts to describe the universe. However, since the 1950s, physicists have increasingly recognised that our most successful theories apply only at specific scales, prompting a shift in approach, with an increased focus on studying phenomena scale by scale. In this context, the ERC-funded RESCALE project challenges traditional philosophical attempts to draw complete world pictures from physics. Through an integrated historical and philosophical study, the project shows that this new scale-based practice reveals instead a complex, layered and partial world picture built around scales, which sheds light on key issues related to representation, realism and metaphysics at the cutting edge of science.
Objective
The ideal of a final theory has shaped much of modern physics and its philosophical interpretations. Physicists have used it as a blueprint to construct theories of space, time, matter, and motion that apply in principle everywhere and under any circumstances. Philosophers have used it as a guide to interpret existing theories and depict the entire universe in terms of a bedrock of fundamental entities. Although this ideal still plays an important role today in quantum gravity, the situation has considerably changed since the 1950s. Physicists now widely recognize that our best current theories work only at certain scales, and that this may well be the case for any future empirically successful theory. Physicists also spend most of their time studying systems scale by scale and analyzing how physical effects depend on each other across scales, even in the context of quantum gravity. How should philosophers adjust their interpretative practice if they are to take this new way of doing physics seriously? What kind of world picture would result from this? The RESCALE project contends that the ideal of a final theory no longer provides a sensible interpretative guide, leaving us with no better option but to depict the universe one scale at a time. More precisely, the project will show through an in-depth integrated historical and philosophical study that physicists new scale-based theoretical practice leads us to draw a partial picture of the world structured in a complex hierarchy of overlapping layers across scales, which is largely independent of what may lie beyond. Besides disclosing a fundamental epistemological transformation in the recent history of science and showing how it forces us to rescale our world picture, this systematic interdisciplinary study at the crossroads of history, philosophy, and physics will have profound implications for our understanding of representation, reduction, realism, and metaphysics at the frontiers of science.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
- humanities history and archaeology history
- social sciences political sciences political transitions revolutions
- humanities philosophy, ethics and religion philosophy metaphysics
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Keywords
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Programme(s)
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
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HORIZON.1.1 - European Research Council (ERC)
MAIN PROGRAMME
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Topic(s)
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Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Funding Scheme
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
HORIZON-ERC - HORIZON ERC Grants
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Call for proposal
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
(opens in new window) ERC-2024-STG
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Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.
80539 MUNCHEN
Germany
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