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Is the universe digital or analog? In this essay I argue that both classical and quantum physics include limits that prevent us from definitively answering that question. That quantum physics does so is no surprise. That classical physics…
In the past century many fundamental results on unpredictability, undecidability and uncertainty have compelled scientists to grapple with the idea that some questions may never be resolved within our current theories. While this…
Thermodynamics provides a transparent definition of the free energy of density functional theory (DFT), and of its derivatives - the potentials, at finite temperatures T. By taking the T to 0 limit, it is shown here that both DFT and…
The electromagnetic field is studied in a family of exact solutions of the Einstein equations whose material content is a perfect fluid with stiff equation of state (p = $\epsilon $ ). The field equations are solved exactly for several…
The article focuses on the issue of the two definitions of charge, mainly the gauge charge and the effective charge of fundamental particles. Most textbooks on classical electromagnetism and quantum field theory only works with the gauge…
The infrared problems of quantum electrodynamics, in contrast to ultraviolet difficulties which are of technical nature, are related to fundamental, conceptual physical questions, such as: what is a charged particle, is the particle…
This paper is devoted to the analysis of the divergence of the electron self-energy in classical electrodynamics. To do so, we appeal to the theory of distributions and a method for obtaining corresponding extensions. At first sight,…
If the results of the first LHC run are not betraying us, many decades of particle physics are culminating in a complete and consistent theory for all non-gravitational physics: the Standard Model. But despite this monumental achievement…
We extend effective field theory to the case of spontaneous symmetry breaking in genuinely finite quantum systems such as small superfluid systems, molecules or atomic nuclei, and focus on deformed nuclei. In finite superfluids, symmetry…
I derive formulas for the electrostatic potential of a charge in or near a membrane modeled as one or more dielectric slabs lying between two semi-infinite dielectrics. One can use these formulas in Monte Carlo codes to compute the…
A number of boundary problems in multidimensional elasticity theory are solved. The solutions can be treated as the simplest cosmological models. Some specific properties of the solutions and experimental consequences of the theory are…
What is physics? What are the limits of what physics can say about the world? In seeking ever-broader theoretical `umbrellas' for physical phenomena, we are seeking unifying principles. Emergent phenomena have turned out to be some of the…
The most fundamental response of a solid to a plasma and vice versa is electric. An electric double layer forms with a solid-bound electron-rich region-the wall charge-and a plasma-bound electron-depleted region-the plasma sheath. But it is…
The ability to flexibly transform between different representations (e.g., from mathematical to graphical representations) of the same concept is a hallmark of expertise. Prior research suggests that many introductory physics students show…
Electromagnetic waves propagate with the speed of light. The reason is that electrostatic fields as well as magnetic fields propagate with this speed. Both types of objects, waves as well as static fields contain and transport energy.…
Attempts at an electromagnetic explanation of the inertial mass of charged particles have recently been revived within the framework of Stochastic Electrodynamics, characterized by the adoption of a classical version of the electromagnetic…
We study equilibrium configurations of infinitely many identical particles on the real line or finitely many particles on the circle, such that the (repelling) force they exert on each other depends only on their distance. The main question…
The electrostatic field magnitude can play a role in a variational principle similar to the role of the index of refraction in geometrical optics, allowing the determination of the electric field lines. This was identified in the context of…
This is a survey of the electrostatic potentials produced by charged straight-line segments, in various numbers of spatial dimensions, with comparisons between uniformly charged segments and those having non-uniform linear charge…
We find that the electric field is not a suitable physical quantity to describe the response of a non-metallic material in the study of non-resonant near-field optics. In practice, we show the spin-less one-electron two-level system…