Related papers: John Archibald Wheeler: A Biographical Memoir
In this paper I address the difference between knowledge-inquiry and wisdom-inquiry (concepts introduced by N. Maxwell) in nuclear physics education, specifically in senior-level textbooks for first-degree physics students. Following on…
We outline the course of affairs in the experimental and theoretical fields of nuclear and particle physics which determined its finale, and give several fragmentary remarks on its present state. The essay tells about events and their…
It is difficult to extract reliable criteria for causal locality from the limited ingredients found in textbook quantum theory. In the end, Bell humbly warned that his eponymous theorem was based on criteria that "should be viewed with the…
Neither the world nor science came to an end when the gunfire stopped on 11 November 1918 (close to 11 AM in some time zone), but neither would ever be the same again. Part I of this inquiry (Observatory 138, 46-58, April 2018) looked at…
It is argued that at a sufficiently deep level the conventional quantitative approach to the study of nature faces difficult problems, and that biological processes should be seen as more fundamental, in a way that can be elaborated on the…
Einstein's contribution to relativity is reviewed. It is pointed out that Weyl gave first unified theory of gravitation and electromagnetism and it was different than the five dimensional theory of Kaluza. Einstein began his work on…
This is a historical account from my personal perspective of the development over the last few decades of the standard model of particle physics. The model is based on gauge theories, of which the first was quantum electrodynamics,…
I am a Quantum Engineer, but on Sundays I have principles, John Bell opened his "underground colloquium" in March 1983, words which I will never forget! What! John Bell, the great John Bell, presented himself as an engineer!?! one of those…
John Bell once argued that one ought to select, out of the 'observables' of quantum theory, some subset of 'beables' that can be consistently ascribed determinate values. Moreover, this subset should be selected so as to guarantee (among…
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…
This is a popular lecture about the history of gravitational wave research. Without any doubt, the discovery of gravitational waves is the most important event in the physics of the last decade along with the discovery of the Higgs boson.…
Of all basic principles of classical physics, realism should arguably be the last to be given up when seeking a better interpretation of quantum mechanics. We examine the de Broglie-Bohm pilot wave theory as a well developed example of a…
The Wheeler -- DeWitt equation was proposed 50 years ago and until now it is the cornerstone of most approaches to quantization of gravity. One can find in the literature the opinion that the Wheeler -- DeWitt equation is even more…
What is sometimes called the "totalitarian principle," a metaphysical doctrine often associated with the famous physicist Murray Gell-Mann, states that everything allowed by the laws of nature must actually exist. The principle is closely…
General Relativity has shown an outstanding observational success in the scales where it has been directly tested. However, modifications have been intensively explored in the regimes where it seems either incomplete or signals its own…
I describe parts of my joint work with S. Deser [March 19, 1931 - April 21, 2023] which started when I was working as a post-doc at Brandeis University in 2001. Our work was mostly, but not exclusively, on conserved charges of higher…
The law of centripetal force governing the motion of celestial bodies in eccentric conic sections, has been established and thoroughly investigated by Sir Isaac Newton in his Principia Mathematica. Yet its profound implications on the…
In this work we argue that the power and effectiveness of the Bohrian approach to quantum mechanics is essentially grounded on an inconsistent form of anti-realist realism which supports not only the uncritical tolerance -- in physics --…
We develop a purely quantum theory based on the novel principle of relativity, termed the quantum principle of relativity, instead of directly applying the diffeomorphism invariance. We demonstrate that the essence of the principle can be…
The purpose of this paper is to construct a quantum field theory suitable for describing quantum electrodynamics and Yang-Mills theory in a form which satisfies the conditions of the Millennium prize offered by the Clay Mathematics…