Related papers: Physicists in times of war
This is the first of a series of papers that we intend to publish about the epistemology of fundamental physics in its current state. One of the main objectives of these papers is to improve our understanding of fundamental physics (and…
Many macroscopic physical processes are known to occur in a time-directed way despite the apparent time-symmetry of the known fundamental laws. A popular explanation is to postulate an unimaginably atypical state for the early universe -- a…
It is the role of the scientific community to provide for the knowledge of scientific facts and technical capabilities as a background for political decision-making. The reasons are given why governments are sometimes not ready to accept…
I offer an analysis of the Principle of Sufficient Reason and its relevancy for the scientific endeavour. I submit that the world is not, and cannot be, rational - only some brained beings are. The Principle of Sufficient Reason is not a…
Eugene Wigner famously argued for the "unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics" for describing physics and other natural sciences in his 1960 essay. That essay has now led to some 55 years of (sometimes anguished) soul searching ---…
A particular science is not only defined by its object of study, but also by the point of view and method under which it considers that same object. Taking space and time as an illustrative example, our main aim here is to bring out an…
The intuitive reasoning of physicists in conditions of uncertainty is closer to the Bayesian approach than to the frequentist ideas taught at University and which are considered the reference framework for handling statistical problems. The…
In a comparison of the principles of special relativity and of quantum mechanics, the former theory is marked by its relative economy and apparent explanatory simplicity. A number of theorists have thus been led to search for a small number…
What is physics? What are the limits of what physics can say about the world? In seeking ever-broader theoretical `umbrellas' for physical phenomena, we are seeking unifying principles. Emergent phenomena have turned out to be some of the…
The principle of sufficient reason asserts that anything that happens does so for a reason: no definite state of affairs can come into being unless there is a sufficient reason why that particular thing should happen. This principle is…
This article contributes to a global history of relativity, by exploring how Einstein's theory was appropriated in Belgium. This may sound as a contradiction in terms, yet the early-twentieth-century Belgian context, because of its cultural…
Recent developments in foundations of physics have given rise to a class of views suggesting that physically meaningful descriptions must always be relativized to a physical perspective. In this article I distinguish between strong physical…
This paper will consist of a selected, personal view of some of the issues associated with the intersections of nuclear and particle physics. As well as touching on the recent developments we will attempt to look at how those aspects of the…
The mathematical model of orthodox quantum mechanics has been critically examined and some deficiencies have been summarized. The model based on the extended Hilbert space and free of these shortages has been proposed; parameters being…
In recent work, Nina Emery has defended the view that, in the context of naturalistic metaphysics, one should maintain the same epistemic attitude towards science and metaphysics. That is, naturalists who are scientific realists ought to be…
This paper examines the incommensurability thesis - one of the most important and controversial ideas to emerge from the simultaneous work of Kuhn and Feyerabend. In the first half, I discuss three aspects of incommensurability -…
Dealing with Eugene Wigner's ideas on the measurement procedure in quantum physics and unearthing the controversy that pitted him against supporters of the interpretation of complementarity, I will show how Wigner and his followers…
Why is modern physics still today, more than 100 years after its birth, the privilege of an elite of scientists and unknown for the great majority of citizens? The answer is simple, since modern physics is in general not present in the…
Modern physics, via the standard model with Higgs mechanism and string theory for example, has supplied ether-like models and emergent general relativity scenarios that substantially weaken the usual defense of orthodox relativity and…
However, the observations encompassed by classical physics excludes the observer from the physical reality, yet the deep-down understandung of nature --{\it the quantum theory}-- can not avoid the intrusion of observer into the measurement…