.Professor Ph.D. Cornell University, 1965
.
Professor Franklin's research is on the
history and philosophy of science, with particular emphasis on
the role of
experiment in physics. He has done historical studies on parity
nonconservation, CP-violation, and Millikan's oil drop
experiment. On the philosophical side, he has worked on the Duhem-Quine
problem, the question of how one can
localize support or refutation, and on confirmation theory, using a
Bayesian approach. He has also discussed an
epistemology of experiment, a set of strategies that provide rational
belief in experimental results. These strategies
distinguish between a valid experimental result and an artifact created
by the experimental apparatus. More recently he
has worked on the fallibility and corrigibility of experimental results
and the resolution of discordant results. He has also
completed studies of the interaction of theory and experiment in the
development of the theory of weak interactions from
Fermi to V-A, a history of atomic parity violation experiments and
their relation to the Weinberg- Salam unified theory of
electroweak interactions. He gas also worked on the history of the "Fifth Force" in gravity and a
review of the history of
the proposed 17-keV neutrino.
He has written a history of the neutrino, from its proposal in 1931 to
the present and his
most recent book Selectivity and Discord: Two Problems of
Experiment deals with the issues of experimenter bias and of
the resolution of discordant experimental results.
Selected Publications
The
Neglect of Experiment, (Cambridge University Press, 1986).
"Experiment,
Theory, Choice and the Duhem-Quine Problem" in Theory and
Experiment,
D. Batens and
J.P. van Dendegem (eds.), D. Reidel Publishing Co. (1988).
Experiment,
Right or Wrong (Cambridge University Press, 1990).
"The Appearance
and Disappearance of the 17-keV Neutrino," Reviews of Modern
Physics (1995).
The Rise and
Fall of Fifth Force (New York: American Institute of Physics, 1993)
Can That Be
Right? Essays on Experiment, Evidence, and Science. (Dordrecht:
Kluwer
Academic
Publishers (1999)
Are There Really Neutrinos? An Evidential History (Perseus Books, 2000)
Selectivity and Discord: Two Problems of Experiment (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2002)
For a recent article on "Experiment in Physics" click here.
I am a professor in the Physics Department.
| Allan Franklin | |
| phone | (303) 492-8610 |
| FAX | (303) 492-2998 |
| Allan.Franklin@colorado.edu | |
| address | Dept. of Physics University of Colorado CB 390 |