Related papers: Albert Einstein and Scientific Theology
Einstein's general theory of relativity is the standard theory of gravity, especially where the needs of astronomy, astrophysics, cosmology and fundamental physics are concerned. As such, this theory is used for many practical purposes…
A 21st century view of the nature of science is presented. It attempts to show how a consistent description of science and scientific progress can be given. Science advances through a sequence of models with progressively greater predictive…
We present some historical and philosophical reflections on the paper "On the Relation Between the Expansion and the Mean Density of the Universe", published by Albert Einstein and Willem de Sitter in 1932. In this famous work, Einstein and…
Nearly 4 years ago, two teams of observational astronomers reported that high-redshift Type Ia supernovae are fainter than expected in a decelerating or freely coasting universe. The radical conclusion that the universe has been…
In this essay, I argue that modern science is not the dichotomous pairing of theory and experiment that it is typically presented as, and I offer an alternative paradigm defined by its functions as a human endeavor. I also demonstrate how…
Darwin's hypothesis that all extant life forms are descendants of a last common ancestor cell and diversification of life forms results from gradual mutation plus natural selection represents a mainstream view that has influenced biology…
Although the wish to unify theories into something more fundamental is omnipresent and compelling, nonetheless, in a sense, theories must first be unifiable. The reasons for the success of the unification of electricity and magnetism into a…
Einstein's theory of general relativity models the physical universe using spacetimes which satisfy Einstein's gravitational field equations. To date, Einstein's theory has been enormously successful in modeling observed gravitational…
We discuss the problems of consensus and unity in science. The natural sciences seem to contrast with many other areas of endeavor in that a high level of consensus seems to exist in them. However, a careful analysis of the structure of…
However, the observations encompassed by classical physics excludes the observer from the physical reality, yet the deep-down understandung of nature --{\it the quantum theory}-- can not avoid the intrusion of observer into the measurement…
Einstein's theory of general relativity describes gravity as the interaction of particles with space-time geometry, as opposed to interacting with a physical fluid, as in the old gravitational aether theories. Moreover, any theoretical…
Culture evolves, not just in the trivial sense that cultures change over time, but also in the strong sense that such change is governed by Darwinian principles. Both biological and cultural evolution are essentially cumulative selection…
The tremendous advances of research into artificial intelligence as well as neuroscience made over the last two to three decades have given further support to a renewed interest into philosophical discussions of the mind-body problem.…
The Einstein's equivalence principle and experiments, in which bodies and observers are in different G potentials, have been used to prove that the chain of hypothesis coming from assuming the absolute invariability of the bodies, after a…
In recent decades there has been a resurge of interest in the foundations of quantum theory, partly motivated by new experimental techniques, partly by the emerging field of quantum information science. Old questions, asked since the…
The Einstein-Aether theory provides a simple, dynamical mechanism for breaking Lorentz invariance. It does so within a generally covariant context and may emerge from quantum effects in more fundamental theories. The theory leads to a…
The concept of fact has a history. Over the past centuries, physicists have appropriated it in various ways. In this article, we compare Ernst Mach and Albert Einstein's interpretations of the concept. Mach, like most nineteenth-century…
Einstein Telescope (ET) is the European project for a gravitational-wave (GW) observatory of third-generation. In this paper we present a comprehensive discussion of its science objectives, providing state-of-the-art predictions for the…
A number of philosophers and scientists have discussed the possibility of inseparability between the subject (i.e., the observer) and the object (i.e., the observed universe). In particular, it has recently been proposed that this…
Einstein's thesis ``A New Determination of Molecular Dimensions'' was the second of his five celebrated papers in 1905. Although it is -- thanks to its widespread practical applications -- the most quoted of his papers, it is less known…