Paul BaldufFirst of all, this article is a masterly and dense historical overview, basically every single reference in it is a breakthrough article worth reading. This being said, the article builds upon "Fisher's least cited article". There, Fisher introduces the thesis, which is elaborated in the present article, that almost all interesting #physics happens in the "middle"; concretely in the realm of collective phenomena and effective #fieldTheory governed by the renormalization group.
The present article discusses various examples, each with a provocative title, for example the BCS theory of superconductivity (famously a pure quantum effect) under the slogan that quantum mechanics is really not needed for condensed matter physics. The reasoning is: Such effects are described by effective field theories and "minimal models" with certain "asymptotic" properties (this is discussed in detail), in concrete cases these models can be derived from quantum mechanics, but this derivation does not really add anything to the practical understanding. At the same time, one can often obtain them from thermodynamic considerations alone, regardless of any more fundamental theory.
The article ends with the standard model of elementary particle physics, with the same thesis: One can view this as "just some EFT", which is valid as a very accurate model to describe observations, regardless of whether it is "fundamental"
. https://arxiv.org/abs/2306.06020v1
There's Plenty of Room in the Middle: The Unsung Revolution of the Renormalization Group
The remarkable technical contributions of Michael E. Fisher to statistical physics and the development of the renormalization group are widely known and deeply influential. But less well-known is his early and profound appreciation of the way in which renormalization group created a revolution in our understanding of how physics -- in fact, all science -- is practiced, and the concomitant adjustment that needs to be made to our conception of the purpose and philosophy of science. In this essay, I attempt to redress this imbalance, with examples from Fisher's writings and my own work. It is my hope that this tribute will help remove some of the confusion that surrounds the scientific usage of minimal models and renormalization group concepts, as well as their limitations, in the ongoing effort to understand emergence in complex systems. This paper will be published in "50 years of the renormalization group", dedicated to the memory of Michael E. Fisher, edited by Amnon Aharony, Ora Entin-Wohlman, David Huse and Leo Radzihovsky, World Scientific (in press).
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