Related papers: Physics in Carnacki's investigations
Eugene Wigner famously argued for the "unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics" for describing physics and other natural sciences in his 1960 essay. That essay has now led to some 55 years of (sometimes anguished) soul searching ---…
It is a quite common view among people, that are not aware of the developments in modern physics, that it is part of human nature to substitute religious faith in places where there is no knowledge. Therefore, an increase in knowledge would…
Statistical physics has proven to be a very fruitful framework to describe phenomena outside the realm of traditional physics. The last years have witnessed the attempt by physicists to study collective phenomena emerging from the…
We explore the properties of physical theories in space-times with two time dimensions. We show that the common arguments used to rule such theories out do not apply if the dynamics associated with the additional time dimension is thermal…
150 years after the discovery of quaternions, Hamilton's conjecture that quaternions are a fundamental language for physics is reevaluated and shown to be essentially correct, provided one admits complex numbers in both classical and…
"Magic" is referred to here and there in the robotics literature, from "magical moments" afforded by a mobile bubble machine, to "spells" intended to entertain and motivate children--but what exactly could this concept mean for designers?…
For many students, college physics courses have little or even negative impact on their beliefs about the connection between physics and the everyday world. One way to help students see this connection is to incorporate analysis of science…
The mechanical action on matter of the electromagnetic field emitted by a fluctuating source is governed by its statistics. In particular, thermal sources and vacuum fluctuations exert on bodies those well-known Casimir (C) and Van der…
In the 60s of the last century the few courses of History of physics in Physics degree were held by scholars who, apart from a few exceptions, did not have a specific research background in the field. Some activities, books, social…
We consider the canonical ensemble of $N$ particles admitting a strange Hamiltonian description. Each of the particles obeys a set of Newtonian equation of motion, which can also be described by the standard canonical Hamiltonian mechanics.…
This discovery of the Higgs boson last year has created new possibilities for testing candidate theories for explaining physics beyond the Standard Model. Here we explain the ways in which new physics can leave its marks in the experimental…
When Alice went `Through the Looking Glass' [1], she found herself in a situation where she had to run as fast as she could in order to stay still. In accordance with the dictum that truth is stranger than fiction, we will see that it is…
Science Fiction is using astronomy to offer to the public blockbusters at the movies (e.g. Interstellar), series or movies in streaming media (Don't Look Up, The Expanse), many books from classic authors (I. Asimov, A.C. Clarke) or more…
The Hamiltonian defines the dynamical properties of the universe. Evidence from particle physics shows that there is a different version of the Hamiltonian for each direction of time. As there is no physical basis for the universe to be…
Philosophers have spilled much ink over the discovery of ideas in the classical 'context of discovery'. However, there has been little engagement with the question of what constitutes a discovery of 'things in the world'. A much-overlooked…
The purpose of this paper is to discuss the various types of physical universe which could exist according to modern mathematical physics. The paper begins with an introduction that approaches the question from the viewpoint of ontic…
The experiment performed by Henry Cavendish to measure the density of the earth, is in numerous textbooks described as a measurement of the universal gravitational constant, G, even if we know that this was not true. In this paper, a study…
Physics education research has probed for the relevance of physics in students' everyday lives. Attitudinal and epistemological surveys have asked students if they think of or use physics in their daily lives. We have previously documented…
Astronomy provides a laboratory for extreme physics, a window into environments at extremes of distance, temperature and density that often can't be reproduced in Earth laboratories, or at least not right away. A surprising amount of the…
We describe a variant of the popular game "Pictionary" based on terms used in elementary and high school physics. We believe that drawing of physical terms helps students develop a deeper understanding of physical concepts behind them, as…