Related papers: What happened to modern physics?
Physical quantities and physical dimensions are among the first concepts encountered by students in their undergraduate career. In this pedagogical review, I will start from these concepts and, using the powerful tool of dimensional…
The role mathematics plays within physics has been of sustained interest for physicists as well as for philosophers and historians of science. We explore this topic by tracing the role the mathematical structure associated with SU(2) has…
Modification of three ideas underlying Newton's original world view, with only minor changes in context, might offer two advantages to introductory physics students. First, the students will experience less cognitive dissonance when they…
In this chapter I discuss the impact of concepts of Quantum Field Theory in modern Condensed Physics. Although the interplay between these two areas is certainly not new, the impact and mutual cross-fertilization has certainly grown…
Scientific realism in classical (i.e. pre-quantum) physics has remained compatible with the naive realism of everyday thinking on the whole; whereas it has proven impossible to find any consistent way to visualize the world underlying…
Some contributions of physics towards the understanding of consciousness are described. As recent relevant models, associative memory neural networks are mentioned. It is shown that consciousness and quantum physics share some properties.…
A common understanding of quantum mechanics (QM) among students and practical users is often plagued by a number of "myths", that is, widely accepted claims on which there is not really a general consensus among experts in foundations of…
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 theory revolutionised physics by introducing a new fundamental constant and a new mathematical framework to describe the observed phenomena at the atomic scale. These new concepts run counter to our familiar notions of classical…
This is a report of a course on modern physics designed and taught to undergraduate science and engineering students in the Spring of 2013. The course, meant for freshmen, attempts to integrate statistical mechanics into non-classical…
Following a line of research that I have developed for several years, I argue that the best strategy for understanding quantum gravity is to build a picture of the physical world where the notion of time plays no role. I summarize here this…
Two questions are suggested as having priority when trying to bring together Quantum Mechanics and General Relativity. Both questions have a scope which goes well beyond Physics, and in particular Quantum Mechanics and General Relativity.
Three of the big puzzles of theoretical physics are the following: (i) There is apparently no time evolution in the dynamics of quantum general relativity, because the allowed quantum states must obey the Hamiltonian constraint. (ii) During…
Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity was proposed a little over a hundred years back. It remained a bedrock of twentieth century physics right up to Quantum Field Theory. However, the failure over several decades to provide a unified…
A reliable understanding of the Earth system is essential for the life quality of modern society. Natural hazards are the cause of most life and resource losses. The ability to define the conditions for a sustainable development of…
Aspects of the full theory of loop quantum gravity can be studied in a simpler context by reducing to symmetric models like cosmological ones. This leads to several applications where loop effects play a significant role when one is…
The representations of the world around in physics built with help of causality are analyzed and seems incomplete. The observer's causal representations form a closed logical system, i.e. the compact group related to cause-effect chains.…
The relationship between mathematics and physics has long been an area of interest and speculation. Subscribing to the recent definition by Tegmark, we present a mathematical structure involving the only division rings - the real,…
Quantum gravity has matured over the last decade to a theory which can tell in a precise and explicit way how cosmological singularities of general relativity are removed. A branch of the universe "before" the classical big bang is obtained…
Over the past year and a half we have developed an innovative approach to the teaching of `Physical Science', a general education course typically found in the curricula of nearly every college and university. The new approach uses popular…