Related papers: When physics meets biology: a less known Feynman
The theoretical biologist Robert Rosen developed a highly original approach for investigating the question "What is life?", the most fundamental problem of biology. Considering that Rosen made extensive use of mathematics it might seem…
Feynman's path integrals provide a hidden variable description of quantum mechanics (and quantum field theories). The expectation values defined through path integrals obey Bell's inequalities in Euclidean time, but not in Minkowski time.…
A series of astronomical observations obtained over the period 1986 to 2018 supports the idea that life is a cosmic rather than a purely terrestrial or planetary phenomenon. These include (1) the detection of biologically relevant molecules…
In honor of Alan Turing's hundredth birthday, I unwisely set out some thoughts about one of Turing's obsessions throughout his life, the question of physics and free will. I focus relatively narrowly on a notion that I call "Knightian…
The direct interaction theory of electromagnetism, also known as Wheeler-Feynman electrodynamics, is often misinterpreted and found unappealing because of its reference to the absorber and, more importantly, to the so-called absorber…
At odds with a traditional view of molecular evolution that seeks a descent-with-modification relationship between functional sequences, new functions can emerge {\it de novo} with relative ease. At early times of molecular evolution,…
Scientific communication is an essential part of modern science: whereas Archimedes worked alone, Newton (1676) acknowledged that "If I have seen a little further, it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants." How is scientific…
The idea that all life on earth traces back to a common beginning dates back at least to Charles Darwin's {\em Origin of Species}. Ever since, biologists have tried to piece together parts of this `tree of life' based on what we can observe…
The job of a physicist is to describe Nature. General features, hypotheses and theories help to describe physics phenomena at a more abstract, fundamental level, and are sometimes tacitly assigned some sort of real existence; doing so…
When we teach physics to prospective scientists and engineers we are teaching more than the "facts" of physics - more, even, than the methods and concepts of physics. We are introducing them to a complex culture - a mode of thinking and the…
The Bohr--Einstein debate is one of the more remarkable protracted intellectual exchanges in the history of physics. Its influence has been lasting: One of the few clear patterns in a 2013 survey about quantum foundations was that the…
This book represents a continuation, an elaboration, and possibly a clear explanation of the ideas which were expounded in the previous book Time and Methods in Environmental Interfaces Modeling (henceforth abbreviated as TM, Mihailovic et…
The work done by Isaac Newton more than three hundred years ago, continues being a path to increase our knowledge of Nature. To better understand all the ideas behind it, one of the finest ways is to generalize them to wider situations. In…
The century of complexity has come. The face of science has changed. Surprisingly, when we start asking about the essence of these changes and then critically analyse the answers, the result are mostly discouraging. Most of the answers are…
Heisenberg introduced his famous uncertainty relations in a seminal 1927 paper entitled "The Physical Content of Quantum Kinematics and Mechanics". He motivated his arguments with a gedanken experiment, a gamma ray microscope to measure the…
In classical mechanics matter and fields are completely separated. Matter interacts with fields. For particle physicists this is not the case. Both matter and fields are represented by particles. Fundamental interactions are mediated by…
Many of life's most fascinating phenomena emerge from interactions among many elements--many amino acids determine the structure of a single protein, many genes determine the fate of a cell, many neurons are involved in shaping our thoughts…
One overarching objective of science is to further our understanding of the universe, from its early stages to its current state and future evolution. This depends on gaining insight on the universe's most macroscopic components, for…
These twenty-two lectures, with exercises, comprise the extent of what was meant to be a full-year graduate-level course on the strong interactions and QCD, given at Caltech in 1987-88. The course was cut short by the illness that led to…
Feyerabend frequently discussed physics. He also referred to the history of the subject when motivating his philosophy of science. Alas, as some examples show, his understanding of physics remained superficial. In this respect, Feyerabend…