Creativity and modelling the measurement process of the Higgs self-coupling at the LHC and HL-LHC.

This paper provides an account of the nature of creativity in high-energy physics experiments through an integrated historical and philosophical study of the current and planned attempts to measure the self-coupling of the Higgs boson by two experimental collaborations (ATLAS and CMS) at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) and the planned High Luminosity Large Hadron Collider (HL-LHC). A notion of creativity is first identified broadly as an increase in the epistemic value of a measurement outcome from an unexpected transformation, and narrowly as a condition for knowledge of the measurement of the self-coupling of the Higgs. Drawing upon Tal's model-based epistemology of measurement (2012) this paper shows how without change to 'readings' (or 'instrument indicators') a transformation to the model of the measurement process can increase the epistemic value of the measurement outcome.

Constraints and divergent assessments of fertility in non-empirical physics in the history of the string theory controversy.

This paper examines historic appraisals of string theory to develop a less abstract understanding of the string theory controversy and assessment in non-empirical physics. This historical approach reveals several points of conflict in the controversy, each centring on a constraint. By proceeding stepwise through these constraints, I reveal the role that constraints played in determining divergent assessments of string theory.

How uncertainty can save measurement from circularity and holism.

Measurement results depend upon assumptions, and some of those assumptions are theoretical in character. This paper examines particle physics measurements in which a measurement result depends upon a type of assumption for which that very same result may be evidentially relevant, thus raising a worry about potential circularity in argumentation. We demonstrate how the practice of evaluating measurement uncertainty serves to render any such evidential circularity epistemically benign.

'Crackpots' and 'active researchers': The controversy over links between arXiv and the scientific blogosphere.

Controversies over string theory (collectively termed the 'string wars') intensified in 2005. Also in that year, the open-access preprint publisher arXiv instituted a new feature called a 'trackback'. This new feature enabled authors of blog posts discussing a paper on arXiv to leave a trackback (a link) to the post on the paper's abstract page on arXiv.