Abstract
Abtract In this paper, ‘novelty’ is explored through a recent historical episode from high energy experimental physics to offer an understanding of novelty as disruption. I call this the ‘750 GeV episode’, an episode where two Large Hadron Collider (LHC) experiments, CMS and ATLAS, each independently observed indications of a new resonance at approximately 750 GeV. With further data collection, the initial excess was determined to be a statistical fluctuation. The approach taken, in the analysis of interviews conducted with physicists who were involved in the ‘750 GeV episode’, is to consider novelty as a valued difference. Following this conceptually driven approach, disambiguate between several notions of novelty through the identification of varied differences. This disambiguation is achieved through exploring differences expressed in comparison to varied expressions of the standard model, and through exploring varied ‘types’ of difference (properties and entities) to introduce disruptive exploratory experimentation, a complementary understanding ‘exploratory experimentation’ (Elliott, 2007; Steinle, 1997, 2002). I show that the kinds of novelty framed as most valuable are those that violate expectations and are difficult to incorporate into the existing structures of knowledge. In such instances, disruption to the existing ontology or ways of knowing is valued. This positive appraisal of disruption, and contradiction over confirmation, is considered in the recent context of high-energy physics, where several physicists have claimed that there is a lack of promising directions for the future, or even that the field is in a ‘crisis’. I show that the role of disruption explains the differences between the differing notions of novelty. Furthermore, I show that the positive appraisal of disruption is based on forward looking assessments of future fertility, or heuristic appraisal (Nickles, 1989, 2006). Within the context of concerns of a lack of available promising future directions, disruption becomes a generator of alternative futures.
Highlights
In this paper, I will explore ‘novelty’ through a recent historical episode of LHC physics
In order to explore the first group of reference classes against which novelty is claimed, I will draw upon a quote from an interview participant from the CMS experiment, Carraway, who described the first observation of 750 GeV excess in December 2015 relation to the historic discovery of the Higgs: “There was a lot of anticipation, people were really watching ATLAS and CMS to show something, and by chance something came out
It is here that I can further explore the apparently conflicting simultaneous expectations from earlier: that is, the case of an articulated expectation, which is closely linked with hope, for results that will contradict expectations that are motivated by theory: “... to start with the Higgs Boson, so, I mean, that's the, the particle we discovered last and it's the one on which we have larger error bars, okay? So, between those error bars and the predictions from the standard model theory there may be effects that ... that would, would give us a direction e that would be evidence essentially of something else ... so ... yes, there I think is ... [reason to hope or expect] I mean, obviously, because
Summary
I will explore ‘novelty’ through a recent historical episode of LHC physics. Rather than attempting to explain novelty, as is the aim in the literature concerning emergence, or attempting to define novelty via necessary and sufficient conditions, I follow the various uses of novelty by experimentalists in order to gain insight into how and where the concept of novelty is invoked by experimentalists This approach allows for conceptual engagement with novelty, whilst building upon the insights of researchers working from detailed historical accounts who examined the local and contextual nature of epistemic practices (in this paper, understandings of novelty come from the actors rather than from considerations of novelty as discovery or as a final product). The integrated approach of this paper allows for both the identification of diverse notions of novelty from the perspective of the experimentalists involved in the episode in question, as well as a conceptual analysis of novelty from the historic context in which the concepts of novelty are expressed
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