Related papers: Sir Arthur Eddington and the Foundations of Modern…
Expository notes which combine a historical survey of the development of quantum physics with a review of selected mathematical topics in quantization theory (addressed to students that are not complete novices in quantum mechanics). After…
The goal of this contribution is to introduce the Hamiltonian formalism of theoretical mechanics for analysing motion in generic linear and non-linear dynamical systems, including particle accelerators. This framework allows the derivation…
We present a general formalism with the aim of describing the situation of an entity, how it is, how it reacts to experiments, how we can make statistics with it, and how it changes under the influence of the rest of the universe. Therefore…
'Tis said, to know others is to be learned, to know oneself, wise - I demonstrate that it could be more fundamental than knowing the rest of nature, by applying classical computational principles and engineering hindsight to derive and…
This note is an extended version of "A note on the foundations of Mechanics", arXiv: 1404.1321 [math-ph]. A presentation of its contents was given in a talk in memorial homage to the professor Juan B. Sancho Guimer\'a. For this reason, it…
We discuss the motivation for pursuing research on the foundations of quantum theory.
This is a position paper written as an introduction to the special volume on quantum algorithms I edited for the journal Mathematical Structures in Computer Science (Volume 20 - Special Issue 06 (Quantum Algorithms), 2010).
The paper attempts to convince that the orthodox interpretation of quantum mechanics does not contradict philosophical realism by throwing light onto certain properties of quantum systems that seem to have escaped attention as yet. The…
The subject of this thesis is the coupling of quantum fields to a classical gravitational background in a semiclassical fashion. It contains a thorough introduction into quantum field theory on curved spacetime with a focus on the…
We introduce PHYSICS, a comprehensive benchmark for university-level physics problem solving. It contains 1297 expert-annotated problems covering six core areas: classical mechanics, quantum mechanics, thermodynamics and statistical…
In this paper, which is of programmatic rather than quantitative nature, we aim to further delineate and sharpen the future potential of the LISA mission in the area of fundamental physics. Given the very broad range of topics that might be…
The present discussion concerning certain fundamental physical theories (such as string theory and multiverse cosmology) has reopened the demarcation problem between science and non-science. While parts of the physics community see the…
Statistical physics has proven to be a very fruitful framework to describe phenomena outside the realm of traditional physics. The last years have witnessed the attempt by physicists to study collective phenomena emerging from the…
We begin by surveying the historical positions in different attempts to understand the material world since the rise of modern science, with specific focus on the role of Cartesian primary qualities in explanatory conceptualisation.…
These lecture notes introduce some topics of classical statistical physics, particularly those that are relevant for neural networks and deep learning. Statistical physics is treated as a branch of probability theory or statistics, with the…
More than a decade ago Edwin Taylor issued a "call to action" that presented the case for basing introductory university mechanics teaching around the principle of stationary action. We report on our response to that call in the form of an…
Since I first became enthralled with physics as a teenager, I've been intrigued by the philosophical aspects of the discipline. As I approached the end of my career as an experimental physicist and observational astronomer (I'm now…
Time-dependent density functional theory (TDDFT) is presently enjoying enormous popularity in quantum chemistry, as a useful tool for extracting electronic excited state energies. This article discusses how TDDFT is much broader in scope,…
This thesis is situated within the context of quantum gravity, broadly understood as any effort to explore the interplay between gravitation and the quantum realm, without necessarily requiring the quantization of the gravitational field…
This text is a slightly edited version of lecture notes for a course I gave at ETH, during the Summer term 2001, to undergraduate Mathematics and Physics students. It covers a few selected topics from perturbation theory at an introductory…