An apology for the simple and small

Recent work on the philosophy of high energy physics experiments has considerably advanced our understanding of their epistemology, for instance concerning measurements by the ATLAS collaboration at the Large Hadron Collider (Beauchemin, Synthese 194:275–312, 2017). In this paper we aim to highlight and analyze complementary low energy ‘tabletop’ experiments in particle (and other kinds of fundamental) physics. In particular, we contrast ATLAS measurements with high precision measurements of the electron magnetic moment. We find, for instance, that the simplicity of the latter experiment allows for uncertainties to be minimized materially, in the very construction of the apparatus. We also sketch how a notion of ‘frugality’ can be used, in light of considerations of simplicity, to understand the value of low energy experiments with respect to the entrenched field of high energy experiment.