Related papers: Maria Krawczyk: friend and physicist
Starting with Einstein's famous papers of 1905, we review some of the ensuing developments and their impact on present-day physics. We attempt to cover topics that are of interest to historians and philosophers of science as well as to…
The past few years have seen dramatic breakthroughs and spectacular and puzzling discoveries in astrophysics and cosmology. In many cases, the new observations can only be explained with the introduction of new fundamental physics. Here we…
In this explanatory work, we make an attempt to briefly discuss the work and technical achievements of twenty female mathematicians. The work may be useful as a historical resource, but there is very little biography or history, and the…
Are we smarter now than Socrates was in his time? Society as a whole certainly enjoys a higher degree of education, but humans as a species probably don't get intrinsically smarter with time. Our knowledge base, however, continues to grow…
Life at Caltech with Murray Gell-Mann in the early 1960's is remembered. Our different paths to quarks, leading to different views of their reality, are described.
A brief account of some recent controversies about the teaching and learning of physics is presented. A shorter version of this outcome was accepted by The Physics Teacher, but publication is still pending.
Brief recollections by the author of how he interacted with Feynman and was influenced by him.
My personal views of the Chiral Magnetic Effect are presented, which starts with a story about how we came up with the electric-current formula and continues to unsettled subtleties in the formula. There are desirable features in the…
In recent years there has been impressive progress in quark flavour physics, with current efforts tackling complicated quantities such as for example inclusive decays, decays to QCD-unstable final states and radiative decays. At the same…
Contributed paper to the Conference "Francesco's Legacy: Star Formation in Space and Time", in memory of Francesco Palla (1954-2016), held in Florence, June 5-9, 2017
Ellipsoids possess several beautiful properties associated with classical potential theory. Some of them are well known, and some have been forgotten. In this article we hope to bring a few of the "lost" pieces of classical mathematics back…
Contrary to claims about the irrelevance of philosophy for science, I argue that philosophy has had, and still has, far more influence on physics than is commonly assumed. I maintain that the current anti-philosophical ideology has had…
In memory of the famous physicist Bruno Pontecorvo, whereof is just occurred the centenary anniversary of the birth and the twentieth anniversary of the death, this paper traces the scientific and human adventure of the italian scientist,…
Discussion of some aspects of the concept of time for a general audience: nature of time, A- and B-series, time in physics, the "now", measurement of time, definition of time units, time's arrow, relativity of time, relativity of…
We read Karen Crowther's \emph{Another 100 Years of Quantum Interpretation?} with two practical goals. First, we spell out what she means by interpretation'': an attempt to provide understanding (not just predictions), which may be…
Some thoughts are presented on the inter-relation between beauty and truth in science in general and theoretical physics in particular. Some conjectural procedures that can be used to create new ideas, concepts and results are illustrated…
Ten years into the LHC physics programme, I reflect on the vast amount of extraordinary results that have emerged so far.
Steven Weinberg was a giant of late 20th Century physics on whose shoulders we stand while groping for the science of the 21st Century. This article provides a too-brief summary of a selection of his many achievements -- eight decades of…
Since I first became enthralled with physics as a teenager, I've been intrigued by the philosophical aspects of the discipline. As I approached the end of my career as an experimental physicist and observational astronomer (I'm now…
Since 2005, the global flagship of outreach activities in high-energy physics have been the International Particle Physics Masterclasses. We report on a survey performed among the participants from Slovakia and the Czech Republic, where we…