A Network Account of Models in High Energy Physics Experiments

Abstract I propose an account of the model-based structure of the present-day high energy physics experiments in which the relations among the theoretical, experimental and simulation models constitute a non-linear structure that is akin to a network of models (NoM). I argue that while the proposed NoM subsumes Suppes’ hierarchy of models (HoM) as the model-based characterization of the inference leading from the data to the validity or invalidity of the hypothesis tested in an experiment, it involves a model-based characterization of the inference leading from the collision of particles to the acquisition of data, which is missing in Suppes’ HoM.