Related papers: On Arthur Eddington's Theory of Everything
Sir Arthur Eddington is considered one of the greatest astrophysicist of the twentieth century and yet he gained a stigma when, in the 1930s, he embarked on a quest to develop a unified theory of gravity and quantum mechanics. His attempts…
This doctoral dissertation presents an in-depth analysis of the first six chapters of Eddington's Fundamental Theory, sometimes referred to as his 'statistical' theory, in the context of discoveries and advancements made since its original…
During the years from 1917 to 1921, A.S. Eddington was intensely occupied with Einstein's general theory of relativity and the epic eclipse expedition which confirmed one of the theory's predictions. During the same period, he investigated…
Pythagoras' theorem lies at the heart of physics as well as mathematics, yet its historical origins are obscure. We highlight a purely pictorial, gestalt-like proof that may have originated during the Zhou Dynasty. Generalizations of the…
From its very beginning, Quantum Theory developed contrary to the intentions of its creators. For Max Planck it marks the failure of a long-term research program, in which he tried to understand the 2nd law of thermodynamics…
Arthur Stanley Eddington was one of the leading astronomers and theorists of his generation and a prominent proponent of the general theory of relativity. Yet when his former assistant Georges Lemaitre sent him a paper in 1927 suggesting…
In light of G\"{o}del's undecidability results (incomplete theorems) for math, quantum indeterminism indicates that physics and the Universe may be indeterministic, incomplete, and open in nature, and therefore demand no single unification…
Modern atomic and nuclear physics took its start in the early part of the twentieth century, to a large extent based upon experimental investigations of radioactive phenomena. Foremost among the pioneers of the new kind of physics was…
We recount the successful long career of classical physics, from Newton to Einstein, which was based on the philosophy of scientific realism. Special emphasis is given to the changing status and number of ontological entitities and…
We resurrect Eddington's proposal for the gravitational action in the presence of a cosmological constant and extend it to include matter fields. We show that the Newton-Poisson equation is modified in the presence of sources and that…
For the celebrations of the 100 years of the observations undertaken by Eddington at the island of Principe and collaborators at Sobral during a total solar eclipse in May 29, 1919, which have confirmed Einstein's theory of general…
The contemporary controversy about the fundamental obscurity in quantum mechanics keeps on the old one about the aim of science, which was between the founders of the quantum theory. The orthodox quantum mechanics could be created only at…
Whitehead's 1922 theory of gravitation continues to attract the attention of philosophers, despite evidence presented in 1971 that it violates experiment. We demonstrate that the theory strongly fails five quite different experimental…
Without a doubt many problems in physics arise as a consequence of our philosophical conception of the world. In this contribution however we endeavor to alleviate this scenario by putting forward a philosophical approach under which some…
Here we show that, Eddington's pure affine gravity, when extended with Riemann curvature, leads to gravitational field equations that incorporate matter. This Riemanned Eddington gravity outfits a setup in which matter gravitates normally…
David Brink was one of the leading theoretical nuclear physicists of his generation. He made major contributions to the study of all aspects of nuclear physics embracing nuclear structure, nuclear scattering, and nuclear instability. His…
As we mark the centenary of Albert Einstein's seminal contribution to both quantum mechanics and special relativity, we approach another anniversary--that of Einstein's foundation of the quantum theory of solids. But 100 years on, the same…
We acuminate the idea of a final theory of physics in order to analyze its logical implications and consequences. It is argued that the rationale of a final theory is the principle of sufficient reason. This implies that a final theory of…
The equations of motion describing all physical systems, except gravity, remain invariant if a constant is added to the Lagrangian. In the conventional approach, gravitational theories break this symmetry exhibited by all other physical…
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…