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Mirroring as an A Priori Symmetry

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Simon Saunders
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Abstract

A relationist will account for the use of ‘left’ and ‘right’ in terms of relative orientations, and other properties and relations invariant under mirroring. This analysis will apply whenever mirroring is a symmetry, so it certainly applies to classical mechanics; we argue it applies to any physical theory formulated on a manifold: it is in this sense an a priori symmetry. It should apply in particular to parity violating theories in quantum mechanics; mirror symmetry is only broken in such theories as a special symmetry.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 74 , Issue 4 , October 2007 , pp. 452 - 480
Copyright
Copyright © The Philosophy of Science Association

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Footnotes

‡

My thanks to a number of audiences, too numerous to mention, who have heard me speak on various of these ideas or their precursors, and for helpful discussions over the years to Harvey Brown, Nick Huggett, Oliver Pooley, David Wallace, and Graeme Segal, none of whom may entirely agree with my conclusions. My special thanks to Oliver Pooley for persuading me of the irrelevance of PCT symmetry to the treatment of mirroring.

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