Related papers: Eddington & Uncertainty
Quantum mechanics has enjoyed a multitude of successes since its formulation in the early twentieth century. At the same time, it has generated puzzles that persist to this day. These puzzles have inspired a large literature in physics and…
Probability theory is far from being the most general mathematical theory of uncertainty. A number of arguments point at its inability to describe second-order ('Knightian') uncertainty. In response, a wide array of theories of uncertainty…
This article is a summary of a talk about Richard Feynman, given at a conference Polymaths across the Eras organized in November 2023 by the St Cross Centre for the History and Philosophy of Physics (HAPP) in Oxford. It describes Feynman as…
Quantum Gravity has been so elusive because we have tried to approach it by two paths which can never meet: standard quantum field theory and general relativity. The gateway is covariance under the complexified Clifford algebra of our…
At the beginning of the previous century, Newtonian mechanics fell victim to two new revolutionary theories, Quantum Mechanics (QM) and General Relativity (GR). Both theories have transformed our view of physical phenomena, with QM…
This article presents a brief review of some historical and philosophical aspects of Einstein's 1917 paper 'Cosmological Considerations in the General Theory of Relativity', a landmark work that denoted the starting point of modern…
Observed physical phenomena can be described well by quantum mechanics or general relativity. People may try to find an unified fundamental theory which mainly aims to merge gravity with quantum theory. However, difficulty in merging those…
A good hundred years after the necessity for a quantum theory of gravity was acknowledged by Albert Einstein, the search for it continues to be an ongoing endeavour. Nevertheless, the field still evolves rapidly as manifested by the recent…
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 20th century has revealed two important limitations of scientific knowledge. On the one hand, the combination of Poincar\'e's nonlinear dynamics and Heisenberg's uncertainty principle leads to a world picture where physical reality is,…
The study of undecidability in problems arising from physics has experienced a renewed interest, mainly in connection with quantum information problems. The goal of this review is to survey this recent development. After a historical…
Modified gravity theories have received increased attention lately due to combined motivation coming from high-energy physics, cosmology and astrophysics. Among numerous alternatives to Einstein's theory of gravity, theories which include…
For the celebrations of the 100 years of the observations undertaken by Eddington at the island of Principe and collaborators at Sobral during a total solar eclipse in May 29, 1919, which have confirmed Einstein's theory of general…
It is commonly remarked that contemporary physics faces a challenge in reconciling quantum theory with Relativity, specifically General Relativity as a theory of gravity. But "challenge" is too mild a descriptor. Once one understands both…
Following a courageous denunciation by Barton Richter in {\it Physics Today,} November 2006, of contemporary particle physics as being "theological speculations," we present insufficiencies of special relativity, quantum mechanics,…
Information is everywhere in nature which is very uncertain and unpredictable. But information, in itself, is a very ambiguous term. In this cursory write-up, we attempt to understand the formal meaning of information by quantifying…
David Brink was one of the leading theoretical nuclear physicists of his generation. He made major contributions to the study of all aspects of nuclear physics embracing nuclear structure, nuclear scattering, and nuclear instability. His…
The historical and conceptual foundations of General Relativity are revisited, putting the main focus on the physical meaning of the invariant ds, the Equivalence Principle, and the precise interpretation of spacetime geometry. It is argued…
The uncertainty principle is a cornerstone of modern physics, and its implications have a fundamental impact on theoretical and applied quantum mechanics. The aim of this thesis is to study and apply the uncertainty relations between time…
The construction of a consistent theory of quantum gravity is a problem in theoretical physics that has so far defied all attempts at resolution. One ansatz to try to obtain a non-trivial quantum theory proceeds via a discretization of…