• Corpus ID: 119278298

When effective theories predict: the inevitability of Mercury's anomalous perihelion precession

@inproceedings{Wells2011WhenET,
  title={When effective theories predict: the inevitability of Mercury's anomalous perihelion precession},
  author={James D. Wells},
  year={2011}
}

• J. Wells
• Published 8 June 2011
• Physics, Geology

If the concepts underlying Effective Theory were appreciated from the ear-liest days of Newtonian gravity, Le Verrier’s announcement in 1845 of the anomalous perihelion precession of Mercury would have been no surprise. Furthermore, the size of the effect could have been anticipated through “naturalness” arguments well before the definitive computation in General Relativity. Thus, we have an illustration of how Effective Theory concepts can guide us in extending our knowledge to “new physics”, and not just in how to reduce larger theories to restricted (e.g., lower energy) domains. Lectures presented to Philosophy of Physics students at the University of Michigan