Related papers: Physics and the Pythagorean Theorem
At the beginning of the 20th century the classical electron theory (or, perhaps more appropriately, the classical electromagnetic mass theory) - the first physical theory that dared ask the question of what inertia and mass were - was…
Our concept of mass has evolved considerably over the centuries, most notably from Newton to Einstein, and then even more vigorously with the establishment of the standard model and the subsequent discovery of the Higgs boson. Mass is now…
This paper forms part of a wider campaign: to deny pointillisme. That is the doctrine that a physical theory's fundamental quantities are defined at points of space or of spacetime, and represent intrinsic properties of such points or…
The first three sections of this article contain a broad brush summary of the profound changes in the notion of time in fundamental physics that were brought about by three revolutions: the foundations of mechanics distilled by Newton in…
Advances in our understanding of the physical universe have impacted dramatically on how we view ourselves. Right at the core of all modern thinking about the universe is the assumption that dynamics is an elemental feature that exists…
Experiment plays a decisive role in physics. It is the single source of our understanding of nature. But, during the last century the main accent in theoretical physics has moved toward metaphysics. Some mathematicians/theoreticians try to…
The conceptual definition and understanding of the nature of time, both qualitatively and quantitatively is of the utmost difficulty and importance, and plays a fundamental role in physics. Physical systems seem to evolve in paths of…
The Einstein-Cartan theory of gravitation and the classical theory of defects in an elastic medium are presented and compared. The former is an extension of general relativity and refers to four-dimensional space-time, while we introduce…
In this paper the existence of the Higgs field is taken as an undeniable starting point. However, the origin of the field is challenged. Rather than ascribing the origin of it to a yet undiscovered phantom particle, the origin is ascribed…
The basic premise of Quantum Mechanics, embodied in the doctrine of wave-particle duality, assigns both, a particle and a wave structure to the physical entities. The classical laws describing the motion of a particle and the evolution of a…
The physical world is quantum. However, our description of the quantum physics still relies much on concepts in classical physics and in some cases with `quantized' interpretations. The most important case example is that of spacetime. We…
We propose a formulation of gravity theory in the form of a field theory in a flat space-time with a number of dimensions greater than four. Configurations of the field under consideration describe the splitting of this space-time into a…
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 paper forms part of a wider campaign: to deny pointillisme. That is the doctrine that a physical theory's fundamental quantities are defined at points of space or of spacetime, and represent intrinsic properties of such points or…
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…
Quantum mechanics is an extremely successful theory of nature and yet it lacks an intuitive axiomatization. In contrast, the special theory of relativity is well understood and is rooted into natural or experimentally justified postulates.…
We describe the non-minimal Standard Model, consisting of minimalistic extensions of the Standard Model, which for all we know is the theory of the universe, able to describe all of the universe from the beginning of time. Extensions…
The mysterious `dark energy' needed to explain the current observations, poses a serious confrontation between fundamental physics and cosmology. The present crisis may be an outcome of the (so far untested) prediction of the general theory…
Riemann's mathematical papers contain many ideas that arise from physics, and some of them are motivated by problems from physics. In fact, it is not easy to separate Riemann's ideas in mathematics from those in physics. Furthermore,…
We are used to the fact that most if not all physical theories are based on the set of real numbers (or another associative division algebra). These all have a cardinality larger than that of the natural numbers, i.e. form a continuum. It…