Related papers: What happened to modern physics?
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…
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…
Our assumption that spacetime is a continuum leads to many challenges in mathematical physics. Singularities, divergent integrals and the like threaten many of our favorite theories, from Newtonian gravity to classical electrodynamics,…
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…
On a scientific meta-level, it is discussed how an overall understanding of the physical universe can be built on the basis of well-proven theories, observations, and recent experiments. In the light of almost a century of struggle to make…
The discovery of quantum mechanics at the beginning of the last century led to a revolution of the physical world view. Modern experiments, made possible by new techniques on the border of the classical and the quantum regimes offer new…
In the last 100 years, the most important equations in physics are Maxwell's equations for electrodynamics, Einstein's equation for gravity, Dirac's equation for the electron and Yang-Mills equation for elementary particles. Do these…
The subject area referred to as "wave chaos", "quantum chaos" or "quantum chaology" has been investigated mostly by the theoretical physics community in the last 30 years. The questions it raises have more recently also attracted the…
Quantum gravity is the missing piece in our understanding of the fundamental interactions today. Given recent observational breakthroughs in gravity, providing a quantum theory for what lies beyond general relativity is more urgent than…
At a fundamental level, the classical picture of the world is dead, and has been dead now for almost a century. Pinning down exactly which quantum phenomena are responsible for this has proved to be a tricky and controversial question, but…
The problem of the determinism of Quantum Mechanics has been a main one during the 20th century. At the same time, in the context of Logic and Set Theory, the importance of ancient paradoxes as well as the appearance of many new ones, has…
Cosmological discoveries over the past century have completely changed our picture of our place in the universe. New observations have a realistic chance of probing nature on heretofore unimaginable scales, and as a result are changing the…
Till now, the foundation of quantum physics is still mysterious. To explore the mysteries in the foundation of quantum physics, people always take it for granted that quantum processes must be some types of fields/objects on a rigid space.…
Since ancient times, mathematics has proven unreasonably effective in its description of physical phenomena. As humankind enters a period of advancement where the completion of the much coveted theory of quantum gravity is at hand, there is…
It has been shown that the criticism of Pauli as well as of Susskind and Glogover may be avoided if the standard quantum-mechanical mathematical model has been suitably extended. There is not more any reason for Einstein's citicism, either,…
For more than half a century, dualities have been at the heart of modern physics. From quantum mechanics to statistical mechanics, condensed matter physics, quantum field theory and quantum gravity, dualities have proven useful in solving…
The laws of quantum mechanics are couched in subtle mathematical language. The laws are not usually stated in a compact pedagogical form. Here I present a possible way to correct this. Essential facts can be distilled into seven statements…
While quantum mechanics (QM) is covered at length in introductory physics textbooks, the concept of quantum entanglement is typically not covered at all, despite its importance in the rapidly growing area of quantum information science and…
Elementary particle physics is gradually implemented into science curricula at high school level. However, common presentations on educational, semi-technical or popular level contain or support severe misconceptions. We discuss in…
Quantum mechanics, information theory, and relativity theory are the basic foundations of theoretical physics. The acquisition of information from a quantum system is the interface of classical and quantum physics. Essential tools for its…