Related papers: When physics meets biology: a less known Feynman
This paper takes James David Forbes' Encyclopaedia Britannica entry, Dissertation Sixth, as a lens to examine physics as a cognitive, practical, and social, enterprise. Forbes wrote this survey of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century…
Improving the scientific literacy of non-scientists is an important goal, both because of the ever-increasing impact of science and technology on our lives, and because understanding science enriches our experience of the natural world. One…
The experimental study of gravity became much more active in the late 1950s, a change pronounced enough be termed the birth, or naissance, of experimental gravity physics. I present a review of developments in this subject since 1915,…
Lot of avenues, the black hole, the wormhole, the dark matter, the dark energy etc. have been opened since the advent of General Theory of Relativity in 1915. Cosmology, the physics of creation and evolution of the universe, which was once…
In 1964, a new particle was proposed by several groups to answer the question of where the masses of elementary particles come from; this particle is usually referred to as the Higgs particle or the Higgs boson. In July 2012, this Higgs…
Richard Feynman famously said that nobody understands quantum mechanics and cautioned against asking: "But how can it be like that?" Something about the conceptual foundations of the theory is profoundly puzzling, but just what is so…
This paper traces the seminal roles that physicists and mathematicians have played in the conceptual development of the biological sciences in the past, and especially in the 19th and 20th centuries.
In the period from about 1890 to 1915 an interdisciplinary and unifying research programme known as "cosmical physics" attracted much scientific and public attention. It typically included aspects of the earth sciences (such as magnetic…
The name of John von Neumann is common both in quantum mechanics and computer science. Are they really two absolutely unconnected areas? Many works devoted to quantum computations and communications are serious argument to suggest about…
The Universe dynamical equations discovered by Alexander Friedmann in 1922 are simple enough to be clear for undergraduate students or even for smart senior schoolkids. The background cosmology driven by the dust-like matter and by positive…
According to Feynman, the universe consists of two parts - the system in which we are interested and the rest of the universe which our measurement process does not reach. Feynman then formulates the density matrix in terms of the…
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…
The discovery of atomic nucleus by E. Rutherford, at the beginning of the twentieth century, was the Nuclear Physics original landmark. From then, a series of experiments in which beams of particles composed of neutrons, protons and others,…
Biological and robotic grasp and manipulation are undeniably similar at the level of mechanical task performance. However, their underlying fundamental biological vs. engineering mechanisms are, by definition, dramatically different and can…
This is an introductory set of lecture notes on quantum cosmology, given in 1995 to an audience with interests ranging from astronomy to particle physics. Topics covered: 1. Introduction: 1.1 Quantum cosmology and quantum gravity; 1.2 A…
This review devoted to the centenary of Alexander Friedmann's prediction of the Universe expansion presents the results obtained by him in 1922 and 1924 and the sketch of their further developments. Special attention is paid to the role of…
Even if Einstein brought major contributions as a founder of quantum mechanics, he remained deeply unsatisfied with the bases of this structure he knew to be so efficient for physics. His critics are often known through his numerous…
A number of features of living systems: reversible interactions and weak bonds underlying motor-dynamics; gel-sol transitions; cellular connected fractal organization; asymmetry in interactions and organization; quantum coherent phenomena;…
Theoretical physics is the search for simple and universal mathematical descriptions of the natural world. In contrast, much of modern biology is an exploration of the complexity and diversity of life. For many, this contrast is prima facie…
Throughout history, a relatively small number of individuals have made a profound and lasting impact on science and society. Despite long-standing, multi-disciplinary interests in understanding careers of elite scientists, there have been…