14 DAY TRIAL // The concept of a fundamental length has been one of the most interesting aspects for physicists over the past century, as they attempted to establish whether all space was made out of a single, continuous unit, or out of several, discrete units. The idea features not only knowledge from physics, but from history and philosophy as well, in equal amounts. The new investigation is titled “Length Matters: The History and the Philosophy of the Notion of Fundamental Length in Modern Physics,” and it will be conducted by a researcher at the Indiana University in the United States.
In charge of the study will be research scientist Amit Hagar, who is an assistant professor in the Department of History and Philosophy of Science, at the IU College of Arts and Sciences. He is the recipient of three-years, $221,660-grant from the US National Science Foundation (NSF) Division of Science, Technology and Society, and he plans to use the money so as to gain new insight into how the fundamental length operates, or whether it actually exists or not.
“The study will consider the diverse scientific and philosophical motivations for introducing the notion of fundamental length into modern theories of physics. The discussion will characterize and then analyze the possible phenomenological consequences of this notion, which are currently at the center of heated debates among high-energy physicists who are struggling to unify the general theory of relativity with quantum mechanics,” Hagar says of the purpose behind the new research. The methodological issues plaguing modern theoretical physics today will also be thoroughly analyzed in the upcoming work, the scientist says.
Hagar will basically produce the first monograph of the subject, as he interviews a large number of scientists and experts in the field, who have proposed this idea before. But the main challenge will be proposing new theoretical avenues of research in physics, while at the same time maintaining connections with existing theories. “This challenge, currently faced by theories of quantum gravity, is also what makes the story of the notion of fundamental length so timely, as it best exemplifies the delicate balance between conservatism and innovation that characterizes the practice of extending 'old' physics into new regimes,” the expert concludes.