Related papers: Warum Astrologie nicht funktionieren kann
In some cosmological theories with varying constants there are anthropic reasons why the expansion of the universe must not be too {\it close} to flatness or the cosmological constant too close to zero. Using exact theories which…
Asteroseismology is the determination of the interior structures of stars by using their oscillations as seismic waves. Simple explanations of the astrophysical background and some basic theoretical considerations needed in this rapidly…
Simple assumptions represent a decisive reason to prefer one theory to another in everyday scientific praxis. But this praxis has little philosophical justification, since there exist many notions of simplicity, and those that can be…
We explain the collapse of the wavefunction with the notion that, in a measurement, the system observed nucleates a first order phase transition in the measuring device. The possible final states differ by the values of macroscopic…
All sciences need and many arts apply mathematics whereas mathematics seems to be independent of all of them, but only based upon logic. This conservative concept, however, needs to be revised because, contrary to Platonic idealism…
Agents' judgment depends on perception and previous knowledge. Assuming that previous knowledge depends on perception, we can say that judgment depends on perception. So, if judgment depends on perception, can agents judge that they have…
A common flaw of astronomers is to believe that they know the truth even when data is scarce. I provide ten examples where this approach led to wrong strategic decisions in research plans, causing unnecessary delays in finding the truth. In…
The tremendous popular success of Chaos Theory shares some common points with the not less fortunate Relativity: they both rely on a misunderstanding. Indeed, ironically , the scientific meaning of these terms for mathematicians and…
Astronomers carry out observations to explore the diverse processes and objects which populate our Universe. High-energy physicists carry out experiments to approach the Fundamental Theory underlying space, time and matter. Dark Energy is a…
Attempts to replicate probabilistic reasoning in expert systems have typically overlooked a critical ingredient of that process. Probabilistic analysis typically requires extensive judgments regarding interdependencies among hypotheses and…
Our understanding of the Solar System has been revolutionized over the past decade by the finding that the orbits of the planets are inherently chaotic. In extreme cases, chaotic motions can change the relative positions of the planets…
Classical cosmology exhibits a particular kind of scaling symmetry. The dynamics of the invariants of this symmetry forms a system that exhibits many of the features of open systems such as the non-conservation of mechanical energy and the…
A new approach to the phenomenon of large numbers coincidence leads to unexpected results. No matter how strange it might sound, the exact value of cosmological parameters and their analytical expression through fundamental constants have…
The problem of prediction consists in forecasting the conditional distribution of the next outcome given the past. Assume that the source generating the data is such that there is a stationary ergodic predictor whose error converges to zero…
The rapidly increasing volume of asteroseismic observations on solar-type stars has revealed a need for automated analysis tools. The reason for this is not only that individual analyses of single stars are rather time consuming, but more…
It seems natural to ask why the universe exists at all. Modern physics suggests that the universe can exist all by itself as a self-contained system, without anything external to create or sustain it. But there might not be an absolute…
Randomness is a central concept to statistics and physics. Here, a statistical analysis shows experimental evidence that tossing coins and finding last digits of prime numbers are identical regarding statistics for equally likely outcomes.…
Laboratory astrophysics and complementary theoretical calculations are the foundations of astronomy and astrophysics and will remain so into the foreseeable future. The mission enabling impact of laboratory astrophysics ranges from the…
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…
We assess how physically realistic the ''simulation hypothesis'' for this Universe is, based on physical constraints arising from the link between information and energy, and on known astrophysical constraints. We investigate three cases:…