Related papers: Extracting a Paradox by the Roots
The well-defined but intricate course of time evolution exhibited by many naturally occurring phenomena suggests some source of dynamic order sustaining it. In spite of its obviousness as a problem, it has remained absent from the…
Scientists continue to wrestle with the enigma of time. Is time a dynamic or a fundamental property of spacetime? Why does it have an arrow pointing from past to future? Why are physical laws time-symmetric in a universe with broken…
One source of beauty in mathematics is totally unexpected connections between two fundamentally different objects. For instance, is it not surprising that the time period of a real simple pendulum is linked with a function arising out of…
In the 5th century B.C.,the philosopher and logician Zeno of Elea posed several paradoxes which remained unresolved for over two thousand five hundred years. The $20^{th}$ century saw some resolutions to Zeno's mind boggling problems. This…
The dynamics of a quantum system undergoing frequent "measurements", leading to the so-called quantum Zeno effect, is examined on the basis of a neutron-spin experiment recently proposed for its demonstration. When the spatial degrees of…
Selection rules arising from accidental or broken symmetries may be sufficiently obscure that their agency is hidden, leading to the appearance of "magic zeroes" -- quantities that are suppressed without apparent recourse to a symmetry…
The quantum Zeno effect consists in the hindrance of the evolution of a quantum system that is very frequently monitored and found to be in its initial state at every single measurement. On the basis of the correct formula for the survival…
The universal validity of the second law of thermodynamics is widely attributed to a finely tuned initial condition of the universe. This creates a problem: why is the universe atypical? We suggest that the problem is an artefact created by…
We show in this note that Gibbs paradox arises not due to application of thermodynamic principles, whether classical or statistical or even quantum mechanical, but due to incorrect application of mathematics to the process of mixing of…
Classical-realistic analysis of entangled systems have lead to retrodiction paradoxes, which ordinarily have been dismissed on the grounds of counter-factuality. Instead, we claim that such paradoxes point to a deeper logical structure…
The Einstein-Podolski-Rosen paradox highlights several strange properties of quantum mechanics including the super position of states, the non locality and its limitation to determine an experiment only statistically. Here, this well known…
Arising out of an attempt at a new foundations of mathematics, in which relations are more primitive than sets, and out of the theoretical physicists' concept of underlying causes of empirical phenomena, the idea of a purely mathematical…
Frequent observation of a quantum system leads to quantum Zeno physics, where the system evolution is constrained to states commensurate with the measurement outcome. We show that, more generally, the system can evolve between such states…
Eugene Wigner famously argued for the "unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics" for describing physics and other natural sciences in his 1960 essay. That essay has now led to some 55 years of (sometimes anguished) soul searching ---…
Peculiar measurements can be obtained on systems that undergo both pre- and post-selection. We prove a conjecture from [1] on logical Pre- and Post-Selection (PPS) paradoxes for a restricted case. We prove that all of these paradoxes admit…
Modern physics is founded on two mainstays: mathematical modelling and empirical verification. These two assumptions are prerequisite for the objectivity of scientific discourse. Here we show, however, that they are contradictory, leading…
The Sorites paradox is the name of a class of paradoxes that arise when vague predicates are considered. Vague predicates lack sharp boundaries in extension and is therefore not clear exactly when such predicates apply. Several approaches…
Students of quantum mechanics encounter discrete quantum numbers in a somewhat incoherent and bewildering number of ways. For each physical system studied, quantum numbers seem to be introduced in its own specific way, some enumerating from…
Zeno's ancient paradox depicts a race between swift Achilles and a slow tortoise with a head start. Zeno argued that Achilles could never overtake the tortoise, as at each step Achilles arrived at the tortoise's former position, the…
The concept of uncertainty quanta for a general system is introduced and applied to some important problems in physics and mathematics. EPR paradox gives new clue to the further understanding of particle correlation which turns out to be…