Research

My research lies at the intersection of philosophy of physics, philosophy of science, and philosophy of AI. I work on scientific explanation, confirmation, effective field theories, model building, and the epistemology of deep learning in particle physics.

Journal Articles

• Quantum Deep Learning: A Comprehensive Review
  Yanjun Yi, Martin L. King, et al.
  Review of Modern Physics (Forthcoming)

• Experiment and the Pursuit of Ugly Models
  Martin L. King
  European Journal for Philosophy of Science 15 (55), pp. 1–21, 2025
  PDF DOI
• The End of the Theory-driven Era: 50 Years of Particle Physics
  N. Boddenberg, Martin L. King, and M. Stöltzner
  Physics in Perspective 27, pp. 262–295, 2025
  PDF DOI

• Introduction: Simplicity out of Complexity? Physics and the Aims of Science
  Martin L. King, F. Boge, P. Grünke, and M. A. Carratero Sahuquiho
  Synthese Topical Collection vol. 201 (116), 2024

• Doing More with Less: Dark Matter & Modified Gravity
  Martin L. King
  In: Mills Boyd, N., De Baerdemaeker, S., Heng, K., Matarese, V. (eds) Philosophy of Astrophysics, Synthese Library, Vol. 472, pp. 91–107, 2023
  PDF DOI

• Bottoms Up: The Standard Model Effective Field Theory from a Model Perspective
  P. Bechtle, C. Chall, Martin L. King, M. Krämer, P. Mättig, and M. Stöltzner
  Studies in History and Philosophy of Science 92, pp. 129–143, 2022
  PDF

• Conjectures and Disconfirmations: Confirming the Standard Model Higgs
  Martin L. King
  Erkenntnis, 2021
  PDF DOI
• Universality is not Universal: How Much Can We Explain with Falsehoods?
  Martin L. King
  Metascience vol. 31, pp. 183–186, 2021
  PDF DOI

• Explanations and Candidate Explanations in Physics
  Martin L. King
  European Journal for Philosophy of Science 10(1), pp. 1–17, 2020
  PDF

• From a Boson to the Standard Model Higgs: A Case Study in Confirmation and Model Dynamics
  C. Chall, Martin L. King, P. Mättig, and M. Stöltzner
  Synthèse SI: Reasoning in Physics, vol. 198, pp. 1–33, 2018
  PDF

• On Structural Accounts of Model-Explanations
  Martin L. King
  Synthèse 193(9), pp. 2761–2778, 2016
  PDF

Edited Volumes

• Simplicity out of Complexity? Physics and the Aims of Science
  Martin L. King (editor)
  Synthese Topical Collection. ISSN: 1573-0964

Working Papers & Preprints

• Deep Learning and Model Independence
  Martin L. King
  Under Review
  arXiv
• Abstraction, Explanation, and Effective Field Theories
  Martin L. King
  Completed Manuscript
  arXiv
• Pluralism about Progress
  Martin L. King, N. Boddenberg, P. Maettig, and M. Stöltzner
  Completed Manuscript

Select Presentations

Invited Talks

• Insights from Quantum Natural Language Processing
  Philosophy of Science Conference, Dubrovnik, Croatia · April 2026
• The Pursuit of Ugly Models
  Philosophy of Science Conference, Dubrovnik, Croatia · April 2025
• Theoretical Virtues and the Pursuit of Ugly Models
  Cambridge-LMU Joint Workshop on Philosophy of Science, Cambridge, UK · September 2023
• Deep Learning as Model Independence
  Philosophy of Science Conference, Dubrovnik, Croatia · April 2023
• Confirming Minimal Supersymmetry with the Higgs
  Philosophy of Supersymmetry, Stockholm, Sweden · May 2022
• Particle Physics at the Crossroads
  Möbius Seminar, Astroparticles and Cosmology Laboratory, University of Paris/CNRS · March 2021

Recent Contributed Talks

• The Pursuit of Ugly Models
  16th Ontologia, San Sebastian, Spain · October 2025
• Pluralism about Progress
  10th biennial meeting of the European Philosophy of Science Association, Groningen, Netherlands · August 2025
• The Pursuit of Ugly Models
  Canadian Society for History and Philosophy of Science, Toronto · May 2025
• Deep Learning and Model Independence
  88th Meeting of the German Physical Society, Bonn · March 2025
• The Pursuit of Ugly Models
  29th Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association, New Orleans · November 2024
• The Pursuit of Ugly Models
  British Society for Philosophy of Science, York, UK · July 2024