Related papers: Physics and the Totalitarian Principle
The reader surely knows what particles physics is about: finding building blocks of nature that appear elementary at a given time and study their interactions - so why in the world this essay? The problem is how to arrive at a fundamental…
A standard line in the contemporary philosophical literature has it that physical theories are equivalent only when they agree on their empirical content, where this empirical content is often understood as being encoded in the equations of…
Determinism is (roughly) the thesis that the past determines the future. But efforts to define it precisely have exposed deep methodological disagreements. Standard possible-worlds formulations of determinism presuppose an "agreement"…
Without a doubt many problems in physics arise as a consequence of our philosophical conception of the world. In this contribution however we endeavor to alleviate this scenario by putting forward a philosophical approach under which some…
It is a commonplace to note that in a world governed by special or general relativity, an observer has access only to data within her past lightcone (if that). The significance of this for prediction, and thus for confirmation, does not…
An overview of the experimental and observational status in gravitational physics is given, both for the known tests of general relativity and Newtonian gravity, but also for the increasing number of results where these theories run into…
Classical physics is generally regarded as deterministic, as opposed to quantum mechanics that is considered the first theory to have introduced genuine indeterminism into physics. We challenge this view by arguing that the alleged…
A tradition handed down among physicists maintains that classical physics is a perfectly deterministic theory capable of predicting the future with absolute certainty, independently of any interpretations. It also tells that it was quantum…
Fundamental duality is a concept which refers to two irreducible, heterogeneous principles which are in opposite and complementary of each other. The complementary principle in quantum mechanics is also praised by Bohr. This important…
Pythagoras' theorem lies at the heart of physics as well as mathematics, yet its historical origins are obscure. We highlight a purely pictorial, gestalt-like proof that may have originated during the Zhou Dynasty. Generalizations of the…
The principle which allows to construct new physical theories on the basis of classical mechanics by reduction of the number of its axiom without engaging new postulates is formulated. The arising incompleteness of theory manifests itself…
A definition of a {\it Realistic} Physics Theory is proposed based on the idea that, at all time, the set of physical properties possessed (at that time) by a system should unequivocally determine the probabilities of outcomes of all…
A strongly deterministic theory of physics is one that permits exactly one possible history of the universe. In the words of Penrose (1989), ''it is not just a matter of the future being determined by the past; the entire history of the…
Many physicists, following Einstein, believe that the ultimate aim of theoretical physics is to find a unified theory of all interactions which would not depend on any free dimensionless constant, i.e., a dimensionless constant that is only…
The traditional metaphysical debate between static and dynamic views in the philosophy of time is examined in light of considerations concerning the nature of time in physical theory. Adapting the formalism of Rovelli (1995, 2004), I set…
Why does such a successful theory like Quantum Mechanics have so many mysteries? The history of this theory is replete with dubious interpretations and controversies, and yet a knowledge of its predictions, however, contributed to the…
From what is known today about the elementary particles of matter, and the forces that control their behavior, it may be observed that still a host of obstacles must be overcome that are standing in the way of further progress of our…
The newly discovered principle of maximum force makes it possible to summarize special relativity, quantum theory\se, and general relativity in one fundamental limit principle each. The three principles fully contain the three theories and…
The belief that three dimensional space is infinite and flat in the absence of matter is a canon of physics that has been in place since the time of Newton. The assumption that space is flat at infinity has guided several modern physical…
A recent concept in theoretical physics, motivated in string duality and M-theory, is the notion that not all quantum theories arise from quantising a classical system. Also, a given quantum model may possess more than just one classical…