Related papers: Thick Presentism and Newtonian Mechanics
Despite its apparent complexity, our world seems to be governed by simple laws of physics. This volume provides a philosophical introduction to such laws. I explain how they are connected to some of the central issues in philosophy, such as…
We shall show that the abstract and formal rules which govern the quantum kinematic and dynamics can be derived from a law of change of the information content or the degree of uncertainty that the system has a certain configuration in a…
Despite the success of modern physics in formulating mathematical theories that can predict the outcome of quantum-scale experiments, the physical interpretations of these theories remain controversial. In this manuscript, we propose a new…
Deterministic chaos, and even maximum computational complexity, have been discovered within Newtonian dynamics. Economists assume that prices and price changes can also obey abstract mathematical laws of motion. Sociologists and other…
Noether's Theorem is familiar to most physicists due its fundamental role in linking the existence of conservation laws to the underlying symmetries of a physical system. Typically the systems are described in the particle-based context of…
The interaction between two parts in a compound quantum system may be reconsidered more completely than before and some new understandings and conclusions different from current quantum mechanics are obtained, including the conservation law…
We formulate singular classical theories without involving constraints. Applying the action principle for the action (27) we develop a partial (in the sense that not all velocities are transformed to momenta) Hamiltonian formalism in the…
The Great Divide in metaphysical debates about laws of nature is between Humeans, who think that laws merely describe the distribution of matter, and non-Humeans, who think that laws govern it. The metaphysics can place demands on the…
We argue that (1) our perception of time through change and (2) the gap between reality and our observation of it are at the heart of both quantum mechanics and the dynamical mechanism of physical systems. We suggest that the origin of…
In this paper we study a class of physical systems that combine a finite number of mechanical and thermodynamic observables. We call them finite dimensional thermo-mechanical systems. We introduce these systems by means of simple examples.…
The approach to a substantiation of thermodynamics is offered. A conservative system of interacting elements, which is not in equilibrium, is used as a model. This system is then split into small subsystems that are accepted as being in…
A system's apparent simplicity depends on whether it is represented classically or quantally. This is not so surprising, as classical and quantum physics are descriptive frameworks built on different assumptions that capture, emphasize, and…
We propose an interpretation of physics named potentiality realism. This view, which can be applied to classical as well as to quantum physics, regards potentialities (i.e. intrinsic, objective propensities for individual events to obtain)…
Einstein's distinction between principle theories and constructive theories is methodological rather than metaphysical. Principle theories such as thermodynamics and relativity articulate empirically distilled constraints that delimit…
A new, very different physical model of the universe is proposed. Its virtues include unifying relativity and quantum mechanics, and particles with de Broglie waves. It also appears to provide a truly unified physical basis for…
We prove a central limit theorem for the momentum distribution of a particle undergoing an unbiased spatially periodic random forcing at exponentially distributed times without friction. The start is a linear Boltzmann equation for the…
We present an educational proposal which aims to illustrate the elegant, refined and coherent physics contained in Thermodynamics, through a path which assigns to the microscopic description of the physical systems a constantly privileged…
We treat a quantum mechanical system with certain general properties which are expected to be common in macroscopic quantum systems. Starting from a PURE initial state (which may not describe an equilibrium) in which energy is mildly…
The aim of this essay is to propose a conception of mathematics that is fully consonant with naturalism. By that I mean the hypothesis that everything that exists is part of the natural world, which makes up a unitary whole.
Here I explore a novel no-collapse interpretation of quantum mechanics which combines aspects of two familiar and well-developed alternatives, Bohmian mechanics and the many-worlds interpretation. Despite reproducing the empirical…