Related papers: Types of Paradox in Physics
One of the basic concepts of modern physics with a long prehistory is a fluid, which means a substance that flows under an applied shear stress. In this sense fluids form a wide subset of the phases of matter that includes liquids, dense…
Science has traditionally played an important role in sharing knowledge among people. Particle Physics, with its large experiments, has shown that one not only can share the knowledge among different cultures, but that one can also work…
The dynamics of physical theories is usually described by differential equations. Difference equations then appear mainly as an approximation which can be used for a numerical analysis. As such, they have to fulfill certain conditions to…
The nature of time has beguiled philosophers for nearly three millennia. There are myriad types of time including cosmological time, biological time, psychological time, physical time, historical time, and even theological time. My brief…
The relationship between mathematics and physics has long been an area of interest and speculation. Subscribing to the recent definition by Tegmark, we present a mathematical structure involving the only division rings - the real,…
We propose an interpretation of physics named potentiality realism. This view, which can be applied to classical as well as to quantum physics, regards potentialities (i.e. intrinsic, objective propensities for individual events to obtain)…
Recent decades have seen a rise in the use of physics methods to study different societal phenomena. This development has been due to physicists venturing outside of their traditional domains of interest, but also due to scientists from…
Spacetime and internal symmetries can be used to severely restrict the form of the equations for the fundamental laws of physics. The success of this approach in the context of general relativity and particle physics motivates the…
Over the past year and a half we have developed an innovative approach to the teaching of `Physical Science', a general education course typically found in the curricula of nearly every college and university. The new approach uses popular…
Is the universe digital or analog? In this essay I argue that both classical and quantum physics include limits that prevent us from definitively answering that question. That quantum physics does so is no surprise. That classical physics…
This is a systematic review of the concept of indistinguishability in both classical and quantum mechanics, with particular attention to Gibbs' paradox. Section 1 is on the Gibbs paradox; section 2 is a defense of the concept of classical…
Increasingly, the physics community is attending to issues of equity, diversity, and inclusion, both in language and action. We are more publicly recognizing our individual responsibilities as physicists to address social injustice and…
The basic notion of how topoi can be utilized in physics is presented here. Topos and category theory serve as valuable tools which extend our ordinary set-theoretical conceptions, can further the study of quantum logic and give rise to new…
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…
I show that with the discovery of the Higgs boson we have entered a new phase of our understanding of nature. This leads us towards a paradigm shift in the search for possible new physics, away from major extensions like supersymmetry…
Underlying any theory of physics is a layer of conceptual frames. They connect the mathematical structures used in theoretical models with physical phenomena, but they also constitute our fundamental assumptions about reality. Many of the…
The aim of this paper is to introduce a mathematical logic based approach investigating why-type questions in physics.
A brief account of some recent controversies about the teaching and learning of physics is presented. A shorter version of this outcome was accepted by The Physics Teacher, but publication is still pending.
For the classical mind, quantum mechanics is boggling enough; nevertheless more bizarre behavior could be imagined, thereby concentrating on propositional structures (empirical logics) that transcend the quantum domain. One can also…
Gravity is one of the fundamental forces of Nature, and it is the dominant force in most astronomical systems. In common with all other phenomena, gravity must obey the principles of special relativity. In particular, gravitational forces…