Related papers: Against Pointillisme about Mechanics
We outline two subjects of relativistic mechanics: (i) the set of allowable world lines, and (ii) the origin of the relativistic law of dynamics governing point particles. We show that: (i) allowable world lines in the classical theory of…
The problem of understanding quantum mechanics is in large measure the problem of finding appropriate ways of thinking about the spatial and temporal aspects of the physical world. The standard, substantival, set-theoretic conception of…
Most of the logical objections against the classical laws of motion, as they are usually presented in textbooks, centre on the fact that defining force in terms of mass and acceleration, the first two laws are mere assertions of concepts to…
Absolute space is eliminated from the body of mechanics by gauging translations and rotations in the Lagrangian of a classical system. The procedure implies the addition of compensating terms to the kinetic energy, in such a way that the…
Gravity is understood as a geometrization of spacetime. But spacetime is also the manifold of the boundary values of the spinless point particle in a variational approach. Since all known matter, baryons, leptons and gauge bosons are…
A new approach to relativistic mechanics is proposed, suitable to describe dynamics of different kinds of relativistic particles. Mathematically it is based on an application of the recent geometric theory of nonholonomic systems on fibred…
This essay examines our fundamental conceptions of time, spacetime, the asymmetry of time, and the motion of a quantum mechanical particle. The concept of time has multiple meanings and these are often confused in the literature and must be…
Being mathematics a natural language to Mankind and to physics, it must be constantly adapted to our necessities and our natural perception. Then, mathematical concepts are not absolute to reality. Although mathematical theories are…
The continuum has been one of the most controversial topics in mathematics since the time of the Greeks. Some mathematicians, such as Euclid and Cantor, held the position that a line is composed of points, while others, like Aristotle, Weyl…
The conceptual definition and understanding of the nature of time, both qualitatively and quantitatively is of the utmost difficulty and importance, and plays a fundamental role in physics. Physical systems seem to evolve in paths of…
In recent literature, it has become clear that quantum physics does not refute Humeanism. This point has so far been made with respect to Bohms quantum theory. Against this background, this paper seeks to achieve the following four results:…
We propose six principles as the fundamental principles of quantum mechanics: principle of space and time, Galilean principle of relativity, Hamilton's principle, wave principle, probability principle, and principle of indestructibility and…
We propose a deepening of the relativity principle according to which the invariant arena for non-quantum physics is a phase space rather than spacetime. Descriptions of particles propagating and interacting in spacetimes are constructed by…
The quantum mechanical wave-particle dualism is analyzed and criticized, in the framework of Reichenbach's concepts of phenomenon and interphenomenon. It is suggested that the dual pictures be de-emphasized in the study of quantum theory,…
In this article we will discuss a few aspects of the spacetime description of matter and fields. In Section:1 we will discuss the completeness of real numbers in the context of an alternate definition of the straight line as a geometric…
We will prove that, in general, a system formed by several particles moving along relativistic trajectories can not be described by a mechanical system. The contradiction that leads to the previous assertion is due to the fact that a…
At present, whenever we work in newtonian mechanics we consider momentum to be a three-dimensional vector or a 4-dimensional one when we work in relativistic mechanics. However, this mathematical vector model has barely 200 years and its…
A new, very different physical model of the universe is proposed. Its virtues include unifying relativity and quantum mechanics, and particles with de Broglie waves. It also appears to provide a truly unified physical basis for…
A new approach to the dynamics of the universe based on work by O Murchadha, Foster, Anderson and the author is presented. The only kinematics presupposed is the spatial geometry needed to define configuration spaces in purely relational…
From classical mechanics to quantum field theory, the physical facts at one point in space are held to be independent of those at other points in space. I propose that we can usefully challenge this orthodoxy in order to explain otherwise…