Can equations of motion be used in high‐energy physics?

APR 01, 1970

The formalism that has been so successful for classical physics might lead to a useful, as well as aesthetically pleasing, theory of particles.

DOI: 10.1063/1.3022063

P. A. M. Dirac

THE PHENOMENA of high‐energy physics have stimulated the development of several new mathematical approaches to calculate and explain the experimental results. Many of these approaches bear little relation to methods used in other areas of physics and many have incomplete or unsatisfactory aspects to them. They have been used with varying success. Methods based on the equations of motion, so necessary for low‐energy physics, have been largely abandoned as being intractable to this latest branch of physics. Yet if we believe in the unity of physics, we should believe that the same basic ideas universally apply to all fields of physics. Should we not then use the equations of motion in high‐energy as well as low‐energy physics? I say we should. A theory with mathematical beauty is more likely to be correct than an ugly one that fits some experimental data.

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P. A. M. Dirac, University of Cambridge and State University of New York, Stony Brook.