Related papers: How to introduce physical quantities physically
Quantum mechanics, one of the most successful theories in the history of science, was created to account for physical systems not describable by classical physics. Though it is consistent with all experiments conducted thus far, many of its…
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…
The notion of microscopic state of the system at a given moment of time as a point in the phase space as well as a notion of trajectory is widely used in classical mechanics. However, it does not have an immediate physical meaning, since…
We argue that a clear view on quantum mechanics is obtained by considering that the unicity of the macroscopic world is a fundamental postulate of physics, rather than an issue that must be mathematically justified or demonstrated. This…
The physical world is quantum. However, our description of the quantum physics still relies much on concepts in classical physics and in some cases with `quantized' interpretations. The most important case example is that of spacetime. We…
Quantum mechanics marks a radical departure from the classical understanding of Nature, fostering an inherent randomness which forbids a deterministic description; yet the most fundamental departure arises from something different. As shown…
Being mathematics a natural language to Mankind and to physics, it must be constantly adapted to our necessities and our natural perception. Then, mathematical concepts are not absolute to reality. Although mathematical theories are…
A rigorous mathematical theory of dimensional analysis, systematically accounting for the use of physical quantities in science and engineering, perhaps surprisingly, was not developed until relatively recently. We claim that this has…
We take the view that physical quantities are values generated by processes in measurement, not pre-existent objective quantities, and that a measurement result is strictly a product of the apparatus and the subject of the measurement. We…
The procedure used to "do physics" in the macroscopic world is familiar: You take an object, start it off with a particular position and velocity, subject it to known forces (say gravity or friction, or both), and follow its trajectory. You…
Our purpose here is to introduce the idea of viewing the spacetime as a macroscopic complex system which, consequently, cannot be directly quantized. It should be thought of as a collection of more fundamental "microscopical" entities…
Unlike mathematics, in which the notion of truth might be abstract, in physics, the emphasis must be placed on algorithmic procedures for obtaining numerical results subject to the experimental verifiability. For, a physical science is…
The logical line is traced of formulation of theory of mechanics founded on the basic correlations of mathematics of hypercomplex numbers and associated geometric images. Namely, it is shown that the physical equations of quantum, classical…
I propose that Physics should be formulated using minimal mathematical structure, beginning with its foundational arena: spacetime. This paper opens with a concise overview of several research directions explored in previous work. Among…
Many have wondered how mathematics, which appears to be the result of both human creativity and human discovery, can possibly exhibit the degree of success and seemingly-universal applicability to quantifying the physical world as…
In recent publications in physics and mathematics, concerns have been raised about the use of real numbers to describe quantities in physics, and in particular about the usual assumption that physical quantities are infinitely precise. In…
Classical, Quantum and Relativistic mechanics elect time and space as fundamentals, extracting the measure of motion -velocity- from this static space-time platform. Conversely, the timelessness of Statistical mechanics computes the…
The human mind is endowed with innate primordial perceptions such as space, distance, motion, change, flow of time, matter. The field of cognitive science argues that the abstract concepts of mathematics are not Platonic, but are built in…
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…
Physical quantities and physical dimensions are among the first concepts encountered by students in their undergraduate career. In this pedagogical review, I will start from these concepts and, using the powerful tool of dimensional…