Related papers: Scientific Realism and Classical Physics

Einstein distinguished between ``principle'' and ``constructive'' theories in physics, and although he thought the latter were more explanatory than the former, he regarded his 1905 formulation of special relativity theory as a principle…

Minkowski space serves as a framework for the theoretical constructions that deal with manifestations of relativistic effects in physical phenomena. But neither Minkowski himself nor the subsequent developers of the relativity theory have…

The classical theory of electrodynamics is built upon Maxwell's equations and the concepts of electromagnetic field, force, energy, and momentum, which are intimately tied together by Poynting's theorem and the Lorentz force law. Whereas…

Ever since the advent of quantum mechanics, it has been clear that the atoms composing matter do not obey Newton's laws. Instead, their behavior is described by the Schroedinger equation. Surprisingly though, until recently, no clear…

Realism -- the idea that the concepts in physical theories refer to 'things' existing in the real world -- is introduced as a tool to analyze the status of the wave-function. Although the physical entities are recognized by the existence of…

Part 1 : For more than two millennia, ever since Euclid's geometry, the so called Archimedean Axiom has been accepted without sufficiently explicit awareness of that fact. The effect has been a severe restriction of our views of space-time,…

Classical Electrodynamics is not a consistent theory because of its field inadequate behaviour in the vicinity of their sources. Its problems with the electron equation of motion and with non-integrable singularity of the electron self…

Understanding the nature of time remains a key unsolved problem in science. Newton in the Principia asserted an absolute universal time that {\it `flows equably'}. Hamilton then proposed a mathematical unification of space and time within…

A fascinating and deep question about nature is what one would see if one could probe space and time at smaller and smaller distances. Already the 19th-century founders of modern geometry contemplated the possibility that a piece of empty…

This paper is a serious attempt at reconciling quantum and classical mechanics through the concept of dynamic space and the acceptance of non-zero Ricci tensor for vacuum. Starting with scalar particles, the paper shows that with those two…

Einstein's distinction between principle theories and constructive theories is methodological rather than metaphysical. Principle theories such as thermodynamics and relativity articulate empirically distilled constraints that delimit…

In this article, we argue that the theory of special relativity, as formulated by Einstein, is a philosophical rather than a scientific theory. What is scientific and experimentally supported is the formalism of the relativistic mechanics…

The descriptions of the quantum realm and the macroscopic classical world differ significantly not only in their mathematical formulations but also in their foundational concepts and philosophical consequences. When and how physical systems…

We propose in this paper a mathematicians' view of the Kaluza-Klein idea of a five dimensional space-time unifying gravitation and electromagnetism, and extension to higher-dimensional space-time. By considering the classification of…

In this article, the evolution of the ideas about the fourth spatial dimension is presented, starting from those which come out within classical Euclidean geometry and going through those arose in the framework of non-Euclidean geometries,…

The fact that mass has an effect on surrounding space is the first essential element of general relativity. This paper unifies this mass/space distinction of general relativity with Newtonian gravity at a subatomic scale and with reported…

Although implicit in the discovery of the Schwarzschild solution 40 years earlier, the issues raised by the theory of what are now known as black holes were so unsettling to physicists of Einstein's generation that the subject remained in a…

Developments in theoretical cosmology in the recent decades show a close connection with particle physics, quantum gravity and unified theories. Answers or hints to many fundamental questions in cosmology like the homogeneity and isotropy…

Albert Einstein's journey to formulate the theory of general relativity involved significant shifts in his approach to gravitational field equations. Starting in 1912, he collaborated with Marcel Grossmann and initially explored broadly…

Along with weaving together observations, experiments, and theoretical constructs into a coherent mesh of understanding of the world around us, physics over its past five centuries has continuously refined the base concepts on which the…