The US neutrino community gathered at the Workshop on the Intermediate Neutrino Program at Brookhaven National Laboratory February 4-6, 2015 to explore opportunities in neutrino physics over the next five to ten years. Scientists from particle, astroparticle and nuclear physics participated in the workshop. The workshop examined promising opportunities for neutrino physics in the intermediate term, including possible new small to mid-scale experiments, US contributions to large experiments, upgrades to existing experiments, R&D plans and theory. The workshop was organized into (...) two sets of parallel working group sessions, divided by physics topics and technology. Physics working groups covered topics on Sterile Neutrinos, Neutrino Mixing, Neutrino Interactions, Neutrino Properties and Astrophysical Neutrinos. Technology sessions were organized into Theory, Short-Baseline Accelerator Neutrinos, Reactor Neutrinos, Detector R&D and Source, Cyclotron and Meson Decay at Rest sessions.This report summarizes discussion and conclusions from the workshop. (shrink)

In this paper I wish to offer a suggestion in support of the thesis that if a given set of facts is explained by two rival explanations A and B, where A consists of a single hypothesis H1, and B consists of at least two independent hypotheses H2 and H3, then, other things being equal, A is more probable than B. That this view is true is seldom questioned, though I have never seen any reason given for it, which would (...) justify the methodological value so many philosophers attribute to it. It is not my purpose to discuss simplicity of explanation in general, but simply to point out that the Multiplicative Axiom of the calculus of probabilities justifies the above thesis. I shall call this thesis the Principle of Parsimony. (shrink)

Everett J. Nelson; XVI—Causal Necessity and Induction, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 64, Issue 1, 1 June 1964, Pages 289–300, https://doi.org/.

Metaphysical problems may be solved by the methods of inference employed in the empirical sciences. So we are told by many realists and pragmatists, among whom may be mentioned Professors J. B. Pratt, William Savery, and Donald Williams. Mr. Williams and Mr. Pratt have argued for the use of inductive methods in establishing the existence of an external world. Mr. Savery has asserted that all philosophical inference as to matter of fact is inductive. This naturalistic attitude is by no means (...) unusual—in fact it is so common in this age in which the speculations of scientists as well as their achievements have captivated the popular imagination, that even philosophers have for the most part failed to examine its validity and presuppositions. It is the purpose of this paper to present such an examination, not of the philosophic employment of inductive methods in general, but in regard to one specific problem; namely, that of the existence of an external world. What I purpose then is to present and evaluate the view that the existence of an external world may be established by inductive methods as employed in the empirical sciences. (shrink)