Related papers: In Praise of Slowness
The major advances in physics have been through counterintuitive breakthroughs-- ideas that seemed to go against prevailing convictions. In the twentieth century the Special and General Theory of Relativity and Quantum Mechanics have…
The nature of gravity is fundamental to our understanding of our own solar system, the galaxy and the structure and evolution of the Universe. Einstein's general theory of relativity is the standard model that is used for almost ninety…
Time is a parameter playing a central role in our most fundamental modeling of natural laws. Relativity theory shows that the comparison of times measured by different clocks depends on their relative motions and on the strength of the…
The paper defends the thesis that it's possible to maintain some conceptual preconditions of overcoming of relativistic intentions in modern philosophy of science ("there are no any general foundations in philosophy of science"). We found…
The concept of velocity dependent mass, relativistic mass, is examined and is found to be inconsistent with the geometrical formulation of special relativity. This is not a novel result; however, many continue to use this concept and some…
In relativistic dynamics, force and acceleration are no longer parallel. In this article, we revisit the relativistic motion of a particle under the action of a constant force, $\boldsymbol{f}$. \ For a two-dimensional motion, the final…
In Minkowski spacetime, we consider an isolated system made of two pointlike bodies interacting at a distance, in the nonradiative approximation. Our framework is the covariant and a priori Hamiltonian formalism of "predictive relativistic…
The theory of measurement is employed to elucidate the physical basis of general relativity. For measurements involving phenomena with intrinsic length or time scales, such scales must in general be negligible compared to the (translational…
Selleri's paradox, based on an analysis of rotating frames, appears to show that the speed of light in an inertial system is not normally isotropic. This in turn seems at odds with the second postulate of special relativity requiring a…
An overlooked straightforward application of velocity reciprocity to a triplet of inertial frames in collinear motion identifies the ratio of their cyclic relative velocities' sum to the negative product as a cosmic invariant, whose inverse…
Special Relativity (SR) kinematics is derived from very intuitive assumptions. Contrary to standard Einstein's derivation, no light signal is used in the construction nor it is assumed to exist. Instead we postulate the existence of two…
We survey an area of recent development, relating dynamics to theoretical computer science. We discuss the theoretical limits of simulation and computation of interesting quantities in dynamical systems. We will focus on central objects of…
The special theory of relativity is the foundation of modern physics, but its unusual postulate of invariant vacuum speed of light results in a number of plausible paradoxes. This situation leads to radical criticisms and suspicions against…
The treatment of time in relativity does not conform to that in quantum theory. In the context of quantum gravity this is called "the problem of time". A crucial difference is that time $t$ may be seen as an observable in relativity theory,…
This is the introductive paper to the volume "Symmetries in Physics: Philosophical Reflections", Cambridge University Press, 2003. We begin with a brief description of the historical roots and emergence of the concept of symmetry that is at…
The idea of monotonicity (or positive-definiteness in the linear case) is shown to be the central theme of the solution theories associated with problems of mathematical physics. A "grand unified" setting is surveyed covering a…
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…
Jaynes' transformation group principle is used to derive the objective prior for the velocity of a non-zero rest-mass particle. In the case of classical mechanics, invariance under the classical law of addition of velocities, leads to an…
In this paper I argue for a reassessment of special relativity. The fundamental theory of relativity applicable in this Universe has to be consistent with the existence of the massive Universe, and with the effects of its gravitational…
It is argued that the standard quantum mechanical description of the Bell correlations between entangled subsystems is in conflict with relativistic space-time symmetry. Proposals to abandon relativistic symmetry, in the sense of explicitly…