Related papers: Physics Needs Philosophy. Philosophy Needs Physics
Despite the success of our best models in Theoretical Physics, especially concerning Cosmology and Particle Physics, we still face persistent challenges. Among them we have the cosmological singularity problem, understanding the late-time…
The possibility of fundamental theories with very many ground states, each with different physical parameters, changes the way that we approach the major questions of particle physics. Most importantly, it raises the possibility that these…
I present my views on the future of America's program in particle physics. I discuss a variety of experimental initiatives that do have the potential to make transformative impacts on our discipline and should be included in our program, as…
The stipulation that no measurable quantity could have an infinite value is indispensable in physics. At the same time, in mathematics, the possibility of considering an infinite procedure as a whole is usually taken for granted. However,…
Space Science enjoys broad public support in the US. People say they follow developments with interest, and that the programs are worth their cost. This attitude seems to arise in part because of the intrinsic accessibility and appeal of…
The human mind is endowed with innate primordial perceptions such as space, distance, motion, change, flow of time, matter. The field of cognitive science argues that the abstract concepts of mathematics are not Platonic, but are built in…
As part of a longitudinal study into identity development in upper-level physics students, a phenomenographic research method was used to examine students' perceptions of what it means to be a physicist. The results revealed four different…
A substantial school in the philosophy of science identifies Bayesian inference with inductive inference and even rationality as such, and seems to be strengthened by the rise and practical success of Bayesian statistics. We argue that the…
One of the great challenges for 21st century physics is to quantize gravity and generate a theory that will unify gravity with the other three fundamental forces of nature. This paper takes the (heretical) point of view that gravity may be…
Some of the most obviously correct physical theories - namely string theory and the multiverse - make no testable predictions, leading many to question whether we should accept something as scientific even if it makes no testable…
The state of our understanding of cosmology is reviewed from an astrophysical cosmologist point of view with a particular emphasis given to recent observations and their impact. Discussion is then presented on the implications for particle…
The most dramatic developments in theoretical physics in the next millennium are likely to come when we make progress on so far unresolved foundational questions. In this essay I consider two of the deepest problems confronting us, the…
Thought experiment is an apparition in a modern Science, which is in last 100 Years took sweep. Work is based at the aspect of Physics, because and the writer is from Physics. Manners to study thought experiments are multiple, and this work…
Physics faculty care about their students learning physics content. In addition, they usually hope that their students will learn some deeper lessons about thinking critically and scientifically. They hope that as a result of taking a…
We lay the groundwork for a formal framework that studies scientific theories and can serve as a unified foundation for the different theories within physics. We define a scientific theory as a set of verifiable statements, assertions that…
The relevance of the Planck scale to a theory of quantum gravity has become a worryingly little examined assumption that goes unchallenged in the majority of research in this area. However, in all scientific honesty, the significance of…
Bohr's interpretation of quantum mechanics has been criticized as incoherent and opportunistic, and based on doubtful philosophical premises. If so Bohr's influence, in the pre-war period of 1927-1939, is the harder to explain, and the…
While the relation between visualization and scientific understanding has been a topic of long-standing discussion, recent developments in physics have pushed the boundaries of this debate to new and still unexplored realms. For it is…
A scientific analysis of the conditions under which gravity could be controlled and the implications that an hypothetical manipulation of gravity would have for known schemes of space propulsion have been the scope of a recent study carried…
Eugene Wigner famously argued for the "unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics" for describing physics and other natural sciences in his 1960 essay. That essay has now led to some 55 years of (sometimes anguished) soul searching ---…