Interferences and Events:On Epistemic Shifts in Physics through Computer Simulations

Computer simulations are omnipresent media in today's knowledge production. For scientific endeavors such as the detection of gravitational waves and the exploration of subatomic worlds, simulations are essential; however, the epistemic status of computer simulations is rather controversial as they are neither just theory nor just experiment. Therefore, computer simulations have challenged well-established insights and common scientific practices as well as our very understanding of knowledge. This volume contributes to the ongoing discussion on the epistemic position of computer simulations in a variety of physical disciplines, such as quantum optics, quantum mechanics, and computational physics. Originating from an interdisciplinary event, it shows that accounts of contemporary physics can constructively interfere with media theory, philosophy, and the history of science.

Dr. Anne Dippel is an anthropologist and a historian, currently working at Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena and at the Cluster Image-Knowledge-Gestaltung, Humboldt-University Berlin. She has been a visiting assistant professor at MIT, and a researcher and fellow at MECS. Her current fieldwork focuses on the production of cosmology between practice and theory in high-energy physics, amongst other research areas. Recent publications are: A. Dippel, S. Fizek, "Ludification of Culture: The Significance of Play and Games in Everyday Practices of the Digital Age," in Digitalisation: Theories and Concepts for the Empirical Cultural Research, ed. Gertraud Koch (London: Routledge, 2017); A. Dippel, L. Mairhofer, "Patterns and Traces: Pictures of Images and Collisions in the Physics Lab," in Traces: Generating What Was There, ed. Bettina Bock von Wülfingen (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2017).