Related papers: Die Physikalische Sammlung (Physical Collection)
Personal recollections on theoretical particle physics in the years when the Standard Theory was formed. In the background, the remarkable development of Italian theoretical physics in the second part of the last century, with great…
On the occasion of the 50th anniversary since the beginning of the search for gravitational waves at the Max Planck Society, and in coincidence with the 25th anniversary of the foundation of the Albert Einstein Institute, we explore the…
The Universe dynamical equations discovered by Alexander Friedmann in 1922 are simple enough to be clear for undergraduate students or even for smart senior schoolkids. The background cosmology driven by the dust-like matter and by positive…
The problem of axiomatization of physics formulated by Hilbert as early as 1900 and known as the Sixth Problem of Hilbert is nowadays even more topical than at the moment of its formulation. Axiomatic inconsistency of classic, quantum, and…
The three key documents for study geometry are: 1) "The Elements" of Euclid, 2) the lecture by B. Riemann at G\"ottingen in 1854 entitled "\"Uber die Hypothesen welche der Geometrie zu Grunde liegen" (On the hypotheses which underlie…
In the last 175 years, the physical understanding of nature has seen a revolutionary change. Until about 1850, Newton's theory and the mechanical world view derived from it provided the dominant view of the physical world, later…
Shortly after the middle of the past century, a comprehensive presentation of Continuum Mechanics was written under supervision of Clifford Ambrose Truesdell III in two volumes of Siegfried Fluegge's Handbuch der Physik, a first in 1960…
The observational evidence for the recent acceleration of the universe demonstrates that canonical theories of cosmology and particle physics are incomplete (or possibly incorrect) and that new physics is out there, waiting to be…
We sketch the foundations of classical electrodynamics, in particular the transition that took place when Einstein, in 1915, succeeded to formulate general relativity. In 1916 Einstein demonstrated that, with a choice of suitable variables…
Scientific research is and was at all times a transnational (global) activity. In this respect, it crosses several borders: national, cultural, and ideological. Even in times when physical borders separated the scientific community,…
In 1917 Einstein initiated modern cosmology by postulating, based on general relativity, a homogeneous, static, spatially curved universe. To counteract gravitational contraction he introduced the cosmological constant. In 1922 Alexander…
We will follow the growth of gravitational theory in Germany from 1915 to the 1990s, i.e., relativistic theories of gravitation, mainly Einstein's, as a branch of physics in the sense of social, more precisely institutional history. As…
We report on a laboratory activity carried out together with secondary school (high-school) students, with the aim of increasing their interest toward historical scientific instruments and stimulate their approach to scientific knowledge.…
Cluster concepts have been extremely useful in elucidating many problems in physics. Percolation theory provides a generic framework to study the behavior of the cluster distribution. In most cases the theory predicts a geometrical…
When talking to secondary school students, first impressions are crucial. Accidentally say something that sounds boring and you'll lose them in seconds. A physical demonstration can be an eye-catching way to begin an activity or spark off a…
In 1892 H.A. Lorentz started the search for a classical equation of motion for pointlike charged particles that takes into account the radiation reaction force. This search culminated in the Lorentz-Abraham-Dirac equation of motion, which…
The contemporary practice is to favor the use of the SI units for electric circuits and the Gaussian CGS system for electromagnetic field. A modification of the Gaussian system of units (the Physics and Technology System) is suggested. In…
From the perspective of the physics of complex systems (1) we deal with the current state of mod-ern physics including the crisis in physics demonstrated through its epistemological, psychological, economical as well as the social context;…
We have developed the Physics Inventory of Quantitative Literacy (PIQL) as a tool to measure students' quantitative literacy in the context of introductory physics topics. We present the results from various quantitative analyses used to…
Learning to use math in science is a non-trivial task. It involves many different skills (not usually taught in a math class) that help blend physical knowledge with mathematical symbology. One of these is the idea of quantification: that…