物理学史与哲学
It is a pleasure to write for this 90'th anniversary volume of Journal of Low Temperature Physics dedicated to Horst Meyer at Duke University. I was a PhD student with Horst in the period 1975-1980, working in experimental low temperature…
Time has always played a crucial role in cosmology. I review some of the aspects of the present cosmological model which are more directly related to time, such as: the definition of a cosmic time; the existence of typical timescales and…
The apparent dichotomy between quantum jumps on the one hand, and continuous time evolution according to wave equations on the other hand, provided a challenge to Bohr's proposal of quantum jumps in atoms. Furthermore, Schroedinger's…
Planck's law for black-body radiation marks the origin of quantum theory and is discussed in all introductory (or advanced) courses on this subject. However, the question whether Planck really implied quantisation is debated among…
My collaboration and friendship with John Bell is recollected. I will explain his outstanding contributions in particle physics, in accelerator physics, and his joint work with Mary Bell. Mary's work in accelerator physics is also…
The experimental study of gravity became much more active in the late 1950s, a change pronounced enough be termed the birth, or naissance, of experimental gravity physics. I present a review of developments in this subject since 1915,…
We aim to carry out an assessment of the scientific value of Oppenheimer's research on black holes in order to determine and weigh possible factors to explain its neglect by the scientific community, and even by Oppenheimer himself. Dealing…
I argue that some important elements of the current cosmological model are "conventionalist" in the sense defined by Karl Popper. These elements include dark matter and dark energy; both are auxiliary hypotheses that were invoked in…
In papers on the history of general relativity and in personal remembrances of relativists, keywords like "renaissance" and "golden age" of general relativity have been used. We try to show that the first label rests on a weak empirical…
The beginning of the calendar record inscribed on the Mamari tablet has been dated to the day of the summer solstice of December 20, 1680 A.D. The moon was not visible earlier at night. Because of a possible solar eclipse it was a perilous…
According to the Gottesman-Knill theorem, quantum algorithms which utilise only the operations belonging to a certain restricted set are efficiently simulable classically. Since some of the operations in this set generate entangled states,…
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 ---…
The goal of this paper is to explain how the views of Albert Einstein, John Bell and others, about nonlocality and the conceptual issues raised by quantum mechanics, have been rather systematically misunderstood by the majority of…
Recent studies of radioisotopes in tree rings or ice cores suggest that extreme space weather events occurred in the pre-telescope age. Observational records of naked-eye sunspots and low-latitude auroras in historical documents in…
In the early sixties Leonard Parker discovered that the expansion of the universe can create particles out of the vacuum, opening a new and fruitfull field in physics. We give a historical review in the form of an interview that took place…
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…
In 1626, the Venetian physician Santorio Santorio published the details of his pulsilogium, a stop clock that could accurately measure one's pulse rate. He applied Galileo Galilei's insights that the frequency of a pendulum's oscillation is…
Cholanaikkans are a diminishing tribe of India. With a population of less than 200 members, this tribe living in the reserved forests about 80 km from Kozhikode, it is one of the most isolated tribes. A programme of the Government of Kerala…
The purpose of this note is to explain what is "analytical history", a modular and testable analysis of historical events introduced in a book published in 2002 (Roehner and Syme 2002). Broadly speaking, it is a comparative methodology for…
In 2012, Chen Ning Yang received a 90th birthday gift in the form of a black cube inscribed with his 13 most important contributions, which cover four major areas of physics: statistical mechanics, condensed matter physics, particle physics…