Related papers: Operationalization of Basic Observables in Mechani…
The earlier paper, Inertial Mass, Its Mechanics - What It Is; How It Operates, developed the mechanics of inertial mass. The present paper is for the purpose of equivalently developing gravitation. The behavior of gravitation is well known,…
Quantum mechanics owes much of its extraordinary success to a Hilbertian program of mathematical formalization. Yet, the formalism remains poorly aligned with the practical limitations of computations in finite dimensions and under finite…
Fundamental constants are a cornerstone of the physical laws. Any constant varying in space and/or time would signal a violation of local position invariance and be associated with a violation of the universality of free fall, and hence of…
The structure of electrodynamics based on the variational principle together with causality and space-time homogeneity is analyzed. It is proved that in this case the 4-potential is defined uniquely. Therefore, the approach where Maxwell…
The question of what should be meant by a measurement is tackled from a mathematical perspective whose physical interpretation is that a measurement is a fundamental process via which a finite amount of classical information is produced.…
The quantum mechanical commutation relations, which are directly related to the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, have a crucial importance for understanding the quantum mechanics of students. During undergraduate level courses, the…
With approaching quantum/noncommutative models for the deep microscopic spacetime in mind, and inspired by our recent picture of the (projective) Hilbert space as the model of physical space behind basic quantum mechanics, we reformulate…
I show how Hamilton's philosophical commitments led him to a causal interpretation of classical mechanics. I argue that Hamilton's metaphysics of causation was injected into his dynamics by way of a causal interpretation of force. I then…
We reanalyze from a modern perspective the bold idea of G. Helm, W. Ostwald, P. Duhem and others that energy is the fundamental entity composing the physical world. We start from a broad perspective reminding the search for a fundamental…
Newton introduced the concept of mass in his {\it Principia} and gave an intuitive explanation for what it meant. Centuries have passed and physicists as well as philosophers still argue over its meaning. Three types of mass are generally…
In this work we analyze the deep link between the 20th Century positivist re-foundation of physics and the famous measurement problem of quantum mechanics. We attempt to show why this is not an "obvious" nor "self evident" problem for the…
A pedagogical derivation of statistical mechanics from quantum mechanics is provided, by means of open quantum systems. Besides, a new definition of Boltzmann entropy for a quantum closed system is also given to count microstates in a way…
Synergies between self-force theory and other approaches to the gravitational two-body problem have traditionally relied on calculations of gauge-invariant observables as functions of orbital frequencies. However, in self-force theory one…
The foundations of Statistical Mechanics can be recovered almost in their entirety from the Principle of Maximum Entropy. In this work we show that its non-equilibrium generalization, the Principle of Maximum Caliber (Jaynes, 1980), when…
The potential concept that is successful in classical electrodynamics should also be applicable to the nonlinear electromagnetic forces acting on matter. The obvious method of determining these potentials should be provided by Helmholtz's…
The formalism of classical particle dynamics is reinvestigated according to the basic requirement of causal consistency, and a new equation of particle dynamics, which is more general and more in line with classical mechanics experiments…
In the present paper I show how it is possible to derive the Hilbert space formulation of Quantum Mechanics from a comprehensive definition of "physical experiment" and assuming "experimental accessibility and simplicity" as specified by…
Measurement theory in classical mechanics is investigated in the formulation of classical mechanics by Koopman and von Neumann (KvN), using Hilbert space. It is shown that the classical and the quantum measurements give different "relative…
In this work we discuss the notion of observable - both quantum and classical - from a new point of view. In classical mechanics, an observable is represented as a function (measurable, continuous or smooth), whereas in (von Neumann's…
Some interpretations of quantum mechanics use notions of possible states and possible trajectories. I investigate how this modal approach correlates with several metaphysical conceptions of a transition from potential to actual existence.…