astronomy

Roman Frigg

Roman Frigg is a astronomy topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Roman Frigg rather than just read about it. In short: Roman Frigg (born 1972) is a Swiss philosopher and professor at the Department of Philosophy, Logic and Scientific Method at the London School of Economics, where he also directs its Centre for Philosophy of Natural and Social Science. He is also visiting professor at the Munich Centre for Mathematical Philosophy at LMU Munich.

Key takeaways

Roman Frigg belongs to astronomy; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Roman Frigg to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Roman Frigg from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Roman Frigg (born 1972) is a Swiss philosopher and professor at the Department of Philosophy, Logic and Scientific Method at the London School of Economics, where he also directs its Centre for Philosophy of Natural and Social Science. He is also visiting professor at the Munich Centre for Mathematical Philosophy at LMU Munich. In 2016 he was awarded the Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel Research Award. Frigg obtained his MSc in Theoretical Physics at the University of Basel and his PhD in Philosophy at the London School of Economics and Political Science under Nancy Cartwright and Carl Hoefer, with the thesis entitled Re-presenting Scientific Representation.

Philosophy Frigg's philosophy draws extensively from his physics background. He often takes examples from the field to demonstrate how order is emergent, holistic, and contextual by universal and exceptionless laws. For instance, together with Robert Bishop, he explained that there is self-organization and patterns of emergent order in the universe rather than a system being built up just from independently calculated movement of its part. This theory is applied to explain phenomena such as heavenly bodies, global politics, and even family life, among others with the view that a domain is regarded as ordered once its objects are seen as behaving according to a general law. Along with some philosophers like Gabrielle Contessa and Peter Godfrey-Smith, Frigg also theorizes that there are parallels between theoretical modelling and works of fiction that involve fictional characters. For the philosopher, the best way to understand mathematical models is to approach it as if they were more closely related to literary fictions than to bits of mathematics. This can be demonstrated in the way Frigg draws from Kendall Walton's theory, which offers a framework of understanding games of make-believe and uses it to understand the nature and varieties of representation in the arts of art and fiction. Frigg proposed that scientists' prepared descriptions are analogous to props in games of make believe and that the descriptions do not require imaginings about actual objects but ask us to imagine a model-system. It is believed that this approach addresses the concept of model individuation - that "if models are simply mathematical objects, then when two distinct models use the same mathematics, we will not be able to individuate them as separate objects."

Selected publications Roman Frigg, Re-presenting Scientific Representation. London School of Economics, University of London, September 2003. Roman Frigg, Matthew Hunter (eds.). Beyond mimesis and convention: representation in art and science. Springer Netherlands, 2010. Articles, a selection:

Frigg, Roman (2003). "On the property structure of realist collapse interpretations of quantum mechanics and the so-called "counting anomaly"" (PDF). International Studies in the Philosophy of Science. 17 (1). Informa UK Limited: 43–57. doi:10.1080/02698590305232. ISSN 0269-8595. S2CID 10241494. Frigg, Roman; Reiss, Julian (25 June 2009). "The philosophy of simulation: hot new issues or same old stew?" (PDF). Synthese. 180 (1). Springer Science and Business Media LLC: 77. doi:10.1007/s11229-009-9577-x. ISSN 0039-7857. S2CID 19243684. Frigg, Roman (2006). "Scientific Representation and the Semantic View of Theories" (PDF). Theoria. 55 (2). The University of Chicago Press: 183–206. Retrieved 14 February 2013. Frigg, Roman (27 March 2009). "Models and fiction". Synthese. 172 (2). Springer Science and Business Media LLC: 251–268. doi:10.1007/s11229-009-9505-0. ISSN 0039-7857. S2CID 1685834. Frigg, Roman; Votsis, Ioannis (2011). "Everything you always wanted to know about structural realism but were afraid to ask" (PDF). European Journal for Philosophy of Science. 1 (2). Springer Science and Business Media LLC: 227–276. doi:10.1007/s13194-011-0025-7. ISSN 1879-4912. S2CID 1500468. Roman, Frigg; Hartmann, Stephan (27 February 2006). "Models in Science". In Zalta, Edward N. (ed.). The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2012 ed.). Retrieved 24 July 2015.

References

External links Roman Frigg Personal website

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Roman Frigg

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Roman Frigg claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In astronomy, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Roman Frigg before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Roman Frigg ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Roman Frigg

In research: Roman Frigg appears in astronomy research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Roman Frigg in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Roman Frigg is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1972 births, Academics of the London School of Economics, Alumni of the University of London, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Roman Frigg outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Roman Frigg in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Roman Frigg means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Roman Frigg out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Roman Frigg in simple terms?

Why does Roman Frigg matter?

Because it connects several astronomy ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Roman Frigg?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Roman Frigg.