Representative Signatures in Data Analysis - Epistemological Reflections

Session

Signatures in statistical data of (astro-)particle physics

15 Oct 2026, 15:45

JvF25/3-303 - Conference Room (Lamarr/RC Trust Dortmund)

5. Data flows in observational astrophysics

Dr Dominik Elsässer (TU Dortmund)

15/10/2026, 15:45

Research in astronomy and astrophysics has over centuries made huge progress along the frontier of ever increasing observational capabilities, which supply a wealth of data spanning the electromagnetic spectrum and different messengers.
With this treasure drove of data sitting in archives and being continuously added to, questions remain on how to best ensure equal access for members of the...

11. Signatures of electrons at ATLAS: The entheorization of data

Prof. Kent W. Staley (Department of Philosophy, Saint Louis University)

15/10/2026, 16:30

The study of particle signatures at High Energy Colliders provides a concrete context to think about pattern identification in experimental data. An inquiry into pattern identification in relation to particle signatures stands to yield new insights on long-standing philosophical questions about patterns (highlighted in an influential paper by Dennett), such as their relationship to phenomena...

14. A generalized concept of signatures?

Prof. Michael Stöltzner (Department of Philosophy, University of South Carolina)

15/10/2026, 17:45

In a recent paper, Peter Mättig and I developed a generalized version of the concept of signatures broadly used in elementary particle physics and discussed its relation to phenomena and data models. My paper explores, for one, how this concept can be extended to other fields and where such an extension is most likely to fail. Secondly, I discuss to what extent signatures can be a target for...

12. Tracing Particles: “Scanning Girls” and the Automation of Image Evaluation at the German Electron Synchrotron (DESY)

Dr Dinah Pfau (Institute for the History of Science and Technology, Deutsches Museum Munich)

15/10/2026, 18:30

In the course of the “industrialization” (Galison 1997) of high-energy physics during the 1950s and beyond, the evaluation of vast quantities of experimentally produced photographs was initially delegated to untrained women. However, their “practices of seeing” (Schürmann 2008) were soon identified as the economic and epistemic bottleneck of the experimental process — a barrier that was to be...