Tracing the Development of the Virtual Particle Concept Using Semantic Change Detection

TL;DR

This paper explores the evolution of the concept of virtual particles in physics by applying Semantic Change Detection with contextualized embeddings, revealing insights into their conceptual stability and polysemy over time.

Contribution

It demonstrates the effectiveness of Semantic Change Detection using BERT in analyzing scientific concept development, providing new quantitative insights into the history of virtual particles.

Findings

SCD metrics align with qualitative historical research.

Virtual particles became more stable after 1950.

The concept also grew more polysemous over time.

Abstract

Virtual particles are peculiar objects. They figure prominently in much of theoretical and experimental research in elementary particle physics. But exactly what they are is far from obvious. In particular, to what extent they should be considered "real" remains a matter of controversy in philosophy of science. Also their origin and development has only recently come into focus of scholarship in the history of science. In this study, we propose using the intriguing case of virtual particles to discuss the efficacy of Semantic Change Detection (SCD) based on contextualized word embeddings from a domain-adapted BERT model in studying specific scientific concepts. We find that the SCD metrics align well with qualitative research insights in the history and philosophy of science, as well as with the results obtained from Dependency Parsing to determine the frequency and connotations of the term "virtual." Still, the metrics of SCD provide additional insights over and above the qualitative research and the Dependency Parsing. Among other things, the metrics suggest that the concept of the virtual particle became more stable after 1950 but at the same time also more polysemous.