Related papers: Michael Atiyah and Physics: the Later Years
Since ancient times, mathematics has proven unreasonably effective in its description of physical phenomena. As humankind enters a period of advancement where the completion of the much coveted theory of quantum gravity is at hand, there is…
In this paper, I aim to clarify the unconscious ideologies and attitudes held by physicists through Prigogine's work. Prigogine was an outstanding chemist and physicist who made significant contributions to the development of…
An account is given of some topical unpublished work by Ettore Majorana, revealing his very deep intuitions and skilfulness in Theoretical Physics. The relevance of the quite unknown results obtained by him is pointed out as well.
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…
Physics Education Research frequently investigates what students studying physics do on small time scales (e.g. single courses, observations within single courses), or post-education time scales (e.g., what jobs do physics majors get?) but…
We address the question "How do students make sense of Physics from the point of view of constituting physics knowledge?". A phenomenographic study is described as a result of which we present six qualitatively different ways in which…
We first review the historical developments, both in physics and in mathematics, that preceded (and in some sense provided the background of) deformation quantization. Then we describe the birth of the latter theory and its evolution in the…
The first part of this article is a short and selective survey of developments in differential and algebraic geometry from the 1980's involving enumerative questions and nonlinear elliptic partial differential equations. In the second part…
I provide a very brief sketch of some of Dirac's interests and work in gravity, particularly his Hamiltonian formulation of Einstein's theory and its relation to his earlier research.
An early phase of theoretical high energy physics in Israel specifically that connected with Yuval Ne'eman and a small group of my classmates, myself, and several others who worked around him after his return to Israel on the "Eight-fold…
We present some episodes from the history of interactions between geometry and physics over the past century.
For more than half a century, dualities have been at the heart of modern physics. From quantum mechanics to statistical mechanics, condensed matter physics, quantum field theory and quantum gravity, dualities have proven useful in solving…
The authors discuss various objections and rejoinders in the collected responses [math.HO/9404229,math.HO/9404236] to their original article on the relationship between mathematics and theoretical physics [math.HO/9307227].
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 paper discusses the fundamental characteristics distinguishing the natural and social systems from each other. It considers in detail the basic approaches, prospects, and possibilities of constructing mathematical description for social…
We have compiled some sections of works by L. Zamick and collaborators which we hope will be of interest to the reader.
How students use mathematics in their physics classes has been studied extensively in the physics education literature. In addition to specific mathematical methods in specific physics contexts, possible effects of more general "cultural"…
Despite its apparent complexity, our world seems to be governed by simple laws of physics. This volume provides a philosophical introduction to such laws. I explain how they are connected to some of the central issues in philosophy, such as…
Starting from Greg Moore's description about Physical Mathematics, a framework is proposed in order to understand it, based on Gilles Ch\^atelet's philosophy. It will be argued that Ch\^atelet's ideas of inverting, splitting, augmenting and…
It is impossible to review all the fundamental works of Landau Institute, which made important contribution to physics in general. Here I will discuss only a part of these works, only those which directly influence my own work during 50…