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The uniform image of the full moon is well known from the beginning of history. In the last decades, there are photos with a similar configuration of the earth observed from the moon and from space, as well as of all the planets and their…
The Lorentz aether theory was the mathematically equivalent precursor to the special theory of relativity (SR). It assumed the existence of a static aether filling space in which particles are affected by the Lorentz factor for length…
The Einstein Equivalence Principle is a fundamental principle of the theory of General Relativity. While this principle has been thoroughly tested with standard matter, the question of its validity in the Dark sector remains open. In this…
Energy is no doubt an intuitive concept. Following a previous analysis on the nature of elementary particles and associated elementary quantum fields, the peculiar status and role of energy is scrutinised further at elementary and larger…
The relative brightnesses of standard candles have long been known to be potentially powerful probes of distance. The distance modulus, the difference between observed and absolute magnitudes, has been associated with the values of the…
The principle of linear superposition is a hallmark of quantum theory. It has been confirmed experimentally for photons, electrons, neutrons, atoms, for molecules having masses up to ten thousand amu, and also in collective states such as…
We report the results of a double-slit-like experiment in the infrared range, which evidence an anomalous behaviour of photon systems under particular (energy and space) constraints. The statistical analysis of these outcomes (independently…
I discuss some central issues in particle physics which are potentially relevant to cosmology. I first briefly review the present (glorious) experimental status of the Standard Model, emphasizing that it provides a firm foundation both for…
We consider collisions between massive (electrons) and massless (photons) particles near the horizon of a rotating black hole. Similarly to collisions between massive particles, the infinite energy in the centre of mass frame occurs in some…
The observation of the bending of light by mass, now known as gravitational lensing, was key in establishing general relativity as one of the pillars of modern physics. In the past couple of decades, there has been increasing interest in…
The talk consists of three parts. ``History'' briefly describes the emergence and evolution of the concept of photon during the first two decades of the 20th century. ``Mass'' gives a short review of the literature on the upper limit of the…
In order to make plausible the idea that light exerts a pressure on matter, some introductory physics texts consider the force exerted by an electromagnetic wave on an electron. The argument as presented is both mathematically incorrect and…
Based on the concept of extended particles recently introduced we perform a Gedankenexperiment accelerating single electrons with photons of suitably low frequency. Accounting for relativistic time dilation due to the acquired velocity and…
This paper shows that ordinary quantum mechanics is not consistent with the superluminal transmission of classical information.
Maxwell's equations cannot describe a homogeneous and isotropic universe with a uniformly distributed net charge, because the electromagnetic field tensor in such a universe must be vanishing everywhere. For a closed universe with a nonzero…
We analyze the formal equivalence between the electromagnetic energy conservation law derived from Maxwell's equations in an optical microcavity and the conservation of a probability fluid associated with the de Broglie-Bohm theory for an…
With the exception of superselection rules, there are no known explicit violations of the Principle of quantum Superposition. However, quantum measurement and the emergence of classicality seem to imply that the Principle of Superposition…
Attempts to quantize light in a manifestly Lorentz covariant manner fail because of the indefinite metric problem. Here an error in the interpretation is uncovered that is at the root of this problem.
The possibility of the breaking of Lorentz symmetry has been discussed in many models of quantum gravity. In this paper we follow the Lorentz violation model in Ref. [1] (i.e., our previous work) to discuss the Doppler frequency shift of…
A goal of physics is to understand the greatest possible breadth of natural phenomena in terms of the most economical set of basic concepts. However, as the understanding of physics has developed historically, its pedagogy and language have…