Related papers: Quantum criticality
Planck's introduction of the quantum of action in 1900 was followed by 25 years of trial and error in quest of the understanding of the quantum world; different ideas and directions had to be pursued until the path leading to the elementary…
The Einstein postulates assert an invariance of the propagation speed of light in vacuum for any observer, and which amounts to a presumed absence of any preferred frame. The postulates appear to be directly linked to relativistic effects…
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…
Much progress has been made in the last few decades in developing the necessary mathematics for understanding the full implications of the quantum-mechanical many-body problem and why the material world appears to be as stable as it is…
The twentieth century saw two fundamental revolutions in physics -- relativity and quantum. Daily use of these theories can numb the sense of wonder at their immense empirical success. Does their instrumental effectiveness stand on the rock…
Although the concept of a quantum phase transition has been known since the nineteen seventies, their importance as a source of radical transformation in metallic properties has only recently been appreciated. A quantum critical point forms…
The present Editorial introduces the Special Issue dedicated by the journal Universe to the General Theory of Relativity, the beautiful theory of gravitation of Einstein, a century after its birth. It reviews some of its key features in a…
Starting with Einstein's famous papers of 1905, we review some of the ensuing developments and their impact on present-day physics. We attempt to cover topics that are of interest to historians and philosophers of science as well as to…
A fundamental problem of Einstein's theory of classical general relativity is the existence of singularities such as the big bang. All known laws of physics end at these boundaries of classical space-time. Thanks to recent developments in…
Quantum mechanics is now 100 years old and still going strong. Combining general relativity with quantum mechanics is the last hurdle to be overcome in the "quantum revolution".
The origin of quantum physics was the discovery of the base unit of electromagnetic action $h$ by Max Planck in 1900 when he analyzed the experimental results of the black body radiation. This permitted Albert Einstein a few years later to…
Physics was in crisis at the beginning of the twentieth century because the newborn Maxwell's electromagnetism defied mechanistic preconceptions. Albert Einstein understood that the solution to the crisis required an audacious reworking of…
We present a historical review of Einstein's 1917 paper 'Cosmological Considerations in the General Theory of Relativity' to mark the centenary of a key work that set the foundations of modern cosmology. We find that the paper followed as a…
The nature of gravity is fundamental to understand the scaffolding of the Universe and its evolution. Einstein's general theory of relativity has been scrutinized for over ninety five years and shown to describe accurately all phenomena…
Albert Einstein postulated the equivalence of energy and mass, developed the theory of special relativity, explained the photoelectric effect, and described Brownian motion in five papers, all published in 1905, 100 years ago. With these…
This article is a partly pedagogical, partly historical and partly technical review of special relativity and its experimental foundations, in honor of the centenary of Einstein's annus mirabilis.
From the very beginning, Quantum Mechanics has been accompanied by crucial foundational questions: the possibility of visualizing physical processes, the limits of measurement epitomized by the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, the…
Quantum criticality describes the collective fluctuations of matter undergoing a second-order phase transition at zero temperature. Heavy fermion metals have in recent years emerged as prototypical systems to study quantum critical points.…
The World Year of Physics (2005) is an international celebration to commemorate the one hundredth anniversary of Einstein's "Annus Mirabilis". The United Nations has officially declared 2005 the International Year of Physics. However, the…
Around year 2000 the centenary of Planck's thermal radiation formula awakened interest in the origins of quantum theory, traditionally traced back to the Planck's conference on 14 December 1900 at the Berlin Academy of Sciences. A lot of…