Related papers: The April First Phenomenon
The question of what ontological message (if any) is encoded in the formalism of contemporary physics is, to say the least, controversial. The reasons for this state of affairs are psychological and neurobiological. The processes by which…
The physical motivation for the mathematical formalism of quantum mechanics is made clear and compelling by starting from an obvious fact - essentially, the stability of matter - and inquiring into its preconditions: what does it take to…
We show that quantum mechanics is the first theory in human history that violates the basic a priori principles that have shaped human thought since immemorial times. Therefore although it is more contrary to magic than any body of…
Bob chooses a function from a set of functions and gives Alice the black box that computes it. Alice is to find a characteristic of the function through function evaluations. In the quantum case, the number of function evaluations can be…
Simulations are increasingly employing explicit reservoirs - internal, finite regions - to drive electronic or particle transport. This naturally occurs in simulations of transport via ultracold atomic gases. Whether the simulation is…
Friction is usually a very complicated process. It appears in its most elementary form when two flat surfaces separated by vacuum gap are sliding relative to each other at zero Kelvin and the friction is generated by the relative movement…
Defeasible statements are statements that are likely, or probable, or usually true, but may occasionally be false. Plausible reasoning makes conclusions from statements that are either facts or defeasible statements without using numbers.…
Quantum computers are believed to surpass the classical ones. Moreover, it is claimed that this belief reaches the level of a mathematically proven fact within the oracle model of computation. Here we impair the whole class of the so-called…
Present day quantum field theory (QFT) is founded on canonical quantization, which has served quite well, but also has led to several issues. The free field describing a free particle (with no interaction term) can suddenly become…
In this note I go through the `proof' of frequentistic confidence intervals and show what it logically implies concerning the value of a physical quantity given an experimental observation (nothing).
In a room with five cosmologists there there may easily be ten theories of cosmogenesis. Cosmogenesis is a popular topic for speculation because it is philosophically deep and because such speculations are unlikely to be proven wrong in the…
Some of the theoretical motivations and experimental developments leading to the discovery of charm are recalled.
The purpose of this paper is to show the magic of physics by showing the physics of magic. What usually makes magic tricks interesting is that something unexpected occurs. Similarly, demonstrations are interesting inasmuch as they produce…
A common understanding of quantum mechanics (QM) among students and practical users is often plagued by a number of "myths", that is, widely accepted claims on which there is not really a general consensus among experts in foundations of…
Some scientists take themselves and their work very seriously. However, there are plenty of cases of humour being combined with science. Here I review some examples from the broad fields of physics and astronomy, particularly focusing on…
The quantitative aspirations of economists and financial analysts have for many years been based on the belief that it should be possible to build models of economic systems - and financial markets in particular - that are as predictive as…
Information spreads in time. For example, correlations dissipate when the correlated system locally couples to a third party, such as the environment. This simple but important fact forms the known quantum data-processing inequality. Here…
This article is not a proof of the Poincar\'{e} conjecture but a discussion of the proof, its context, and some of the people who played a prominent role. It is a personal, anecdotal account. There may be omission or transpositions as these…
Much attention has been drawn to quantum computing and the exponential speed-up in computation the technology would be able to provide. Various claims have been made about what aspect of quantum mechanics causes this speed-up. Formulations…
"All men by nature desire to know," states Aristotle in the famous first sentence of his Metaphysics. Knowledge about fundamental particles and interactions, that is, knowledge about the deepest aspects of matter, is certainly high if not…