Related papers: Aristotle's Physics: a Physicist's Look
Aristotle has split physics at the sphere of the moon; above this sphere there is no change except eternal spherical motion, below are two different kinds of motion: Natural motion (without specific cause) and enforced motion. In modern…
Despite its apparent simplicity, Newtonian Mechanics contains conceptual subtleties that may cause some confusion to the deep-thinking student. These subtleties concern fundamental issues such as, e.g., the number of independent laws needed…
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…
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…
Many physicists, following Einstein, believe that the ultimate aim of theoretical physics is to find a unified theory of all interactions which would not depend on any free dimensionless constant, i.e., a dimensionless constant that is only…
The general theory of relativity is currently established as the most precise theory of gravity supported by observations, and its application is diverse ranging from astronomy to cosmology, while its application to astrophysics has been…
According to Einstein, the trajectory of a particle that is predicted by special relativistic mechanics is well approximated by the trajectory predicted by Newtonian mechanics if the particle speed is low, i.e., much less than the speed of…
I offer one possible explanation of why inertial and gravitational mass are equal in Newtonian gravitation. I then argue that this is an example of a kind of explanation that is not captured by standard philosophical accounts of scientific…
Gravitation, according to General Relativity, is an attribute of space-time's geometry and hence not a force in the Newtonian sense. This is a consequence of Einstein's equivalence principle, which so far passed all experimental tests with…
According to Aristotle "time is the number of change with respect to the before and after". That's certainly a vague concept, but at the same time it's both simple and satisfying from a philosophical point of view: things do not change…
In teaching the physical sciences, a significant challenge lies in the student's tendency to consider the scientific world and the "real" world as separate. For example, Newton's 1st Law of Motion states that an object in motion remains in…
Influence theory is a foundational theory of physics that is not based on traditional empirically defined concepts, such as positions in space and time, mass, energy, or momentum. Instead, the aim is to derive these concepts, and their…
In this paper of "The Epistemology of Contemporary Physics" series we investigate the epistemological significance and sensibility (and hence interpretability and interpretation) of classical mechanics in its Newtonian and non-Newtonian…
The Einstein gravitational field of a material point at rest is derived anew - by a suitable limit process - from the field of a sphere of a homogeneous and incompressible fluid. This result supports clearly the thesis according to which…
A goal of physics is to understand the greatest possible breadth of natural phenomena in terms of the most economical set of basic concepts. However, as the understanding of physics has developed historically, its pedagogy and language have…
In this paper, it is argued that theoretical physics is more akin to an organism than to a rigid structure.It is in this sense that the epithet, "sick", applies to it. It is argued that classical physics is a model of a healthy science, and…
Based on a tentative interpretation of gravity as a pressure force, a scalar theory of gravity was previously investigated. It assumes gravitational contraction (dilation) of space (time) standards. In the static case, the same Newton law…
Newtons Laws of Motion form the basis of classical mechanics, but misconceptions about their interrelationships persist in pedagogy. A prevalent misunderstanding is that Newtons First Law is a trivial consequence of the Second Law. This…
The purpose of the present work is to trace parallels between the known inertia forces in fluid dynamics with the inertia forces in electromagnetism that are known to induce resistance forces on masses both due to acceleration and at…
There exists some confusion, as evidenced in the literature, regarding the nature of the gravitational field in Einstein's General Theory of Relativity. It is argued here the this confusion is a result of a change in interpretation of the…