Related papers: An Ahistorical Approach to Elementary Physics
This revision includes clarified exposition and simplified analysis. Solutions of the Einstein equations which are periodic and have standing gravitational waves are valuable approximations to more physically realistic solutions with…
Several physical concepts, including the concept of time, are clarified herein by taking into account existing experimental data. In addition, the missing links among these physical concepts are established. This allows us to take another…
Angular momentum is taught in every classical mechanics course. It is a difficult topic with misconceptions commonly forming significant barriers to student success. My intention in writing this paper is to combat some of the most common…
The purpose of this brief note is that of discussing the meaning of the uncertainty relations involving energy and time in quantum mechanics by means of a reading of the classical works on the subject. This was written for undergraduate…
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…
The aim of this essay is to propose a conception of mathematics that is fully consonant with naturalism. By that I mean the hypothesis that everything that exists is part of the natural world, which makes up a unitary whole.
The major conceptual difficulties of quantum mechanics are analyzed. They are: the notion "wave-particle", the probabilistic interpretation of the Schroedinger wave \psi-function and hence the probability amplitude and its phase, long-range…
Equations are about more than computing physical quantities or constructing formal models; they are also about understanding. The conceptual systems physicists use to think about nature are made from many different resources, formal and…
One of the objectives of the undergraduate physics curriculum is for students to become aware of the connections between the fundamental principles of classical physics and their personal experience. Nonetheless, numerous studies have shown…
The decline in student interest in science and technology is a major concern in the western world. One approach to reversing this decline is to introduce modern physics concepts much earlier in the school curriculum. We have used 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…
A system's apparent simplicity depends on whether it is represented classically or quantally. This is not so surprising, as classical and quantum physics are descriptive frameworks built on different assumptions that capture, emphasize, and…
The action principle is frequently used to derive the classical equations of motion. The action may also be used to associate group elements with curves in the space-time manifold, similar to the gauge transformations. The action principle…
The formalism of quantum mechanics produces spectacular results, but its rules, its parameters are empirical, either deduced from classical physics, or from experimental results rather than from the postulates. Thus, quantum mechanics is…
Our conventional understanding of space-time, as well as our notion of geometry, break down once we attempt to describe the very early stages of the evolution of our universe. The extreme physical conditions near the Big Bang necessitate an…
Quantum mechanics is a fundamentally probabilistic theory (at least so far as the empirical predictions are concerned). It follows that, if one wants to properly understand quantum mechanics, it is essential to clearly understand the…
Causality is one of the most fundamental -- and yet elusive -- concepts in physics. From its intuitive role in everyday experience to its formal and often implicit role in scientific theories, causality has challenged philosophers and…
A literature review of related articles, either by affinity or by contrast, to a fundamental theory of time and space - time previously developed. It shows how from a primitive concept of preparticle and membership relation of set theory,…
In this paper, we use methods from differential geometry and statistical mechanics to investigate a model for the concept of mass. The theory is not quantum mechanical in the usual sense, although certain features like multiple histories…
Realism -- the idea that the concepts in physical theories refer to 'things' existing in the real world -- is introduced as a tool to analyze the status of the wave-function. Although the physical entities are recognized by the existence of…