Related papers: The experiment paradox in physics
A philosophically consistent axiomatic approach to classical and quantum mechanics is given. The approach realizes a strong formal implementation of Bohr's correspondence principle. In all instances, classical and quantum concepts are fully…
Laymen and sometimes even physicists think of natural sciences, in particular of theoretical and mathematical physics often as subjects, which unfold according to an intrinsic logical pattern, with the limitations being set only by the…
Defining the entropy of classical particles raises a number of paradoxes and ambiguities, some of which have been known for over a century. Several, such as Gibbs' paradox, involve the fact that classical particles are distinguishable, and…
Troubleshooting systems is integral to experimental physics in both research and instructional laboratory settings. The recently adopted AAPT Lab Guidelines identify troubleshooting as an important learning outcome of the undergraduate…
It is argued that the usual postulates of quantum mechanics are too strong. It is conjectured that it is possible to interpret all experiments if we maintain the formalism of quantum theory without modification, but weaken the postulates…
We introduce an approach to the foundations of physics that is more in line with the foundations of mathematics. The idea is to examine current theories and find a set of starting physical assumptions that are sufficient to rederive them,…
While philosophy of science is the study of problems of knowledge concerning science in general, there also exists - or should exist - a '' philosophy in science'' directed at finding out in what ways our actual scientific knowledge may…
We stress the notion of statistical experiment, which is mandatory for quantum mechanics, and recall Ludwig's foundation of quantum mechanics, which provides the most general framework to deal with statistical experiments giving evidence…
Results of measurements give legitimacy to a physical theory. What if acquiring these results in the first place necessitates what the same theory considers to be an interaction? In this note, we assume that theories account for…
Causal models and methods have great promise, but their progress has been stalled. Proposals using causality get squeezed between two opposing worldviews. Scientific perfectionism--an insistence on only using "correct" models--slows the…
This paper avers that science is not demarcated from other disciplines by a specific unique methodology, but by its specific scientific rationality and rational grounds. In this context, the notion and structure of scientific reason are…
Within the framework of the hypothesis offered by authors about a complex-valued nature of physical quantities the stability of basic equations of the classical physics concerning complex-valued perturbations of parameters and boundary…
If the quantum mechanical description of reality is not complete and a hidden variable theory is possible, what arises is the problem to explain where the rates of the outcomes of statistical experiments come from, as already noticed by…
Several new physics experiments in 1998 were performed and analyzed to show the subtlety of quantum theory, including the "wave-particle duality" and the non-separability of two-particle entangled state. Here it is shown that the…
To make precise the sense in which nature fails to respect classical physics, one requires a formal notion of classicality. Ideally, such a notion should be defined operationally, so that it can be subjected to a direct experimental test,…
In quantum mechanics time usually appears as classical parameter which means that it is treated as being essentially different from spatial coordinates that are represented by operators. On the other hand, relativity theory demands to treat…
It is argued that the conventional formulation of quantum mechanics is inadequate: the usual interpretation of the mathematical formalism in terms of the results of measurements cannot be applied to situations in which discontinuous…
This paper investigates the mathematical representation of time in physics. In existing theories time is represented by the real numbers, hence their formal properties represent properties of time: these are surveyed. The central question…
In R.D. Sorkin's framework for logic in physics a clear separation is made between the collection of unasserted propositions about the physical world and the affirmation or denial of these propositions by the physical world. The unasserted…
This is a companion to another paper. Together they rebut two widespread philosophical doctrines about emergence. The first, and main, doctrine is that emergence is incompatible with reduction. The second is that emergence is supervenience;…