Related papers: Between Pacifism and Nuclear Energy (1930-1955)
Einstein's special theory of relativity starts with assumptions about how observations conducted in relatively moving inertial frames must compare. From these assumptions, conclusions can be drawn regarding the laws of physics in any one…
These notes are an outgrowth of an advanced undergraduate course taught at the University of Maryland, College Park. They are intended as an introduction to various aspects of particle and nuclear physics with an emphasis on the role of…
The nuclear force is the heart of nuclear physics and, thus, the significance of this force for all of nuclear physics can hardly be overstated. Research on this crucial force has by now spanned eight decades and we are still not done. I…
Although largely unrecognized, Gerry Brown had played a seminal and prescient role for the development of the currently heralded "first-principles approach" to nuclear dynamics known as "nuclear effective field theory" ($n$EFT for short). I…
In this paper, we discuss the role of Mathematics in articulating reality in theoretical Physics. We propose a parallel between empirical and theoretical work and investigate how scientists can also speak about reality without performing…
Three-nucleon forces are crucial for the accurate description of nuclear systems, including dense matter probed in neutron stars. We explore nuclear Hamiltonians that reproduce two-nucleon scattering data and properties of light nuclei, but…
The von Neumann attitude on such a deep interpretational question as the role of a human observer in order for the quantum description of measurement to be consistent has been long misrepresented. The large majority of the subsequent…
Einstein's unpublished 1927 deterministic trajectory interpretation of quantum mechanics is critically examined, in particular with regard to the reason given by Einstein for rejecting his theory. It is shown that the aspect Einstein found…
In the year 1900 Max Planck was led by experimental observations to propose a strange formula for the intensity as a function of frequency for light emitted by a cavity. It relied on peculiar properties to be obeyed by the emitters and…
Objections to pilot-wave theory frequently come in three mutually-contradictory categories: that the theory is too bizarrely different from ordinary physics, that the theory is not radically different enough, and that the physics of…
From a rigorous historic analysis of 1686 I. Newton and 1905 A. Einstein works where the last derived the universal mass-energy relationship, it is concluded that rest mass measures potential energy. From the same formula used to obtain…
The dawning of the Space Age marked the start of an ongoing relationship between the professional astronomical community and both state and non-state actors that launch and operate spacecraft in near-Earth orbital space. While the Cold War…
This paper examines Schwarzschild's key contributions to general relativity through his two papers. It focuses on his method for developing exterior and interior solutions. The study emphasizes Schwarzschild's ingenious methods and the…
The main purpose of the present paper is to show that a correction of one mistake was crucial for Einstein's pathway to the first version of the 1915 general theory of relativity, but also might have played a role in obtaining the final…
Since the mid-1920s, different strands of research used stars as "physics laboratories" for investigating the nature of matter under extreme densities and pressures, impossible to realize on Earth. To trace this process this paper is…
In the Patent Office Einstein hatched his most beautiful ideas, and there he spent his "Happy Bern Years". These wonderful ideas led to his miraculous year works of 1905. Einstein was not an expert in academic matters, and he was out of…
The confrontation between General Relativity and experimental results, notably binary pulsar data, is summarized and its significance discussed. The agreement between experiment and theory is numerically very impressive. However, some…
The Einstein postulates assert an invariance of the propagation speed of light in vacuum for any observer, and which amounts to a presumed absence of any preferred frame. The postulates appear to be directly linked to relativistic effects…
This note is devoted to a detail concerning the work of Albert Einstein and Peter Bergmann on unified theories of electromagnetism and gravitation in five dimensions. In their paper of 1938, Einstein and Bergmann were among the first to…
Soon after he proposed three classic observational tests for the general theory of relativity, Einstein realised that a consistent description of the universe as a whole provided another important challenge for the theory. In this essay, we…