Related papers: Unification after 150 years
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…
On 14 December 1900 Max Planck first formulated the idea of energy quanta related to a new universal constant now known as Planck's constant. Despite the following progress of thus initiated "quantum mechanics", the physical origin of both…
The year 2015 was the International Year of Light. It marked, however, also the 20th anniversary of the first observation of Bose-Einstein condensation in atomic vapors by Eric Cornell, Carl Wieman and Wolfgang Ketterle. This discovery can…
This is a pedagogical overview of neutrino physics from the invention of neutrino by Pauli in 1930 to the precise measurement of neutrino mass and mixing parameters via neutrino oscillation experiments in recent years. I have tried to pitch…
Since antiquity, from Euclid of Alexandria to Galileo Galilei to Immanuel Kant to Hermann Minkowksi to Albert Einstein, the question of the nature of space and time has occupied scientists and philosophers. In the four-dimensional…
Within the first quantisation of Maxwell's equations, we introduce the dynamic energy, linear momentum, angular momentum and optical spin of the electromagnetic fields. We show that these different quantities are conserved during the…
Different theoretical and experimental aspects of electromagnetic phenomena in media is reviewed. The 100 year old Minkowski theory is in agreement with most experiments, but has theoretical problems related to its implied validity in all…
Quantum Mechanics, almost 80 years after its arrival, is a well established and experimentally not falsified theory. It has predicted and explained a whole series of natural phenomena of a very delicate nature. But its interpretation has…
After recalling the mathematical structure of Einstein's Hermitian extension of the gravitational theory of 1915, the problem, whether its field equations should admit of phenomenological sources at their right-hand sides, and how this…
In this article an overview of the historical development of the key ideas in the field of magnetism is presented. The presentation is semi-technical in nature.Starting by noting down important contribution of Greeks, William Gilbert,…
Newton's action at a distance gravitational law and Coulomb's action at a distance electrostatic law had to be reexamined in the light of field theories which originated from Maxwell's electrodynamics. These ideas were further modified with…
At the end of the 19th century light was regarded as an electromagnetic wave propagating in a material medium called ether. The speed c appearing in Maxwell's wave equations was the speed of light with respect to the ether. Therefore,…
Modern atomic and nuclear physics took its start in the early part of the twentieth century, to a large extent based upon experimental investigations of radioactive phenomena. Foremost among the pioneers of the new kind of physics was…
The newly discovered principle of maximum force makes it possible to summarize special relativity, quantum theory\se, and general relativity in one fundamental limit principle each. The three principles fully contain the three theories and…
Combining one established idea with two recent ones, it is pointed out for the first time that three of the outstanding problems of particle physics and cosmology, i.e. neutrino mass, dark matter, and baryogenesis, may have a common…
The space-time curvature carried by electromagnetic fields is discovered and a new unification of geometry and electromagnetism is found. Curvature is invariant under charge reversal symmetry. Electromagnetic field equations are examined…
The basic physics disciplines of Maxwell's electrodynamics and Newton's mechanics have been thoroughly tested in the laboratory, but they can nevertheless also support nonphysical solutions. The unphysical nature of some dynamical…
The form of Maxwell's theory is well known in the framework of general relativity, a fact that is related to the applicability of the principle of equivalence to electromagnetic phenomena. We pose the question whether this form changes if…
The electron, which has been pictured as an elementary particle ever since J.J. Thomson's e/m-measurement in 1897, and the relativistic motion of which is described by the Dirac equation, is discussed in the light of the recent progress…
The idea that particles are the basic constituents of all matter dates back to ancient times and formed the basis of physical thought well into modern times. The debate about whether light was a wave or a stream of particles also lasted…