物理学史与哲学

This article is concerned with the role of fundamental principles in theoretical physics, especially quantum theory. The fundamental principles of relativity will be be addressed as well in view of their role in quantum electrodynamics and…

First, this article considers the nature of quantum reality (the reality responsible for quantum phenomena) and the concept of realism (our ability to represent this reality) in quantum theory, in conjunction with the roles of locality,…

I argue that a criterion of theoretical equivalence due to Clark Glymour [Nous 11(3), 227-251 (1977)] does not capture an important sense in which two theories may be equivalent. I then motivate and state an alternative criterion that does…

Berni Julian Alder profoundly influenced my research career at the Livermore Laboratory and the Davis Campus' Teller Tech, beginning in 1962 and lasting for over fifty years. I very much appreciate the opportunity provided by his Ninetieth…

On February 23 1987 a supernova (exploding star) was observed in the Large Cloud of Magellan, the brightest supernova in 400 years. It spurred the commencement of collaborative research in astrophysics between Japan and New Zealand that is…

In the 1990s, Richard Lewontin referred to what appeared to be the twilight of determinism in biology. He pointed out that DNA determines only a little part of life phenomena, which are very complex. In fact, organisms determine the…

Joseph Fourier's discovery of the greenhouse effect is discussed and is compared to the modern conception of the greenhouse effect. It is confirmed that what Fourier discovered is analogous to the modern concept of the greenhouse effect.…

In the Nietzschean philosophy, the concept of force from physics is important to build one of its main concepts: the will to power. The concept of force, which Nietzsche found out in the Classical Mechanics, almost disappears in the physics…

In this work we have carried out an approach between the nonsingular scientific cosmologies (without the initial singularity, the big bang), specially the cyclic models, and the Nietzsche's thought of the eternal recurrence. Moreover, we…

Bertrand's paradox is a famous problem of probability theory, pointing to a possible inconsistency in Laplace's principle of insufficient reason. In this article we show that Bertrand's paradox contains two different problems: an "easy"…

From 1929 to his death in 1944, A. Eddington worked on developing a highly ambitious theory of fundamental physics that covered everything in the physical world, from the tiny electron to the universe at large. His unfinished theory…

2015 is the centennial of Einstein General Relativity. On this occasion, we examine the General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology (GRQC) field of research by analysing 38291 papers uploaded on the electronic archives arXiv.org from 2000 to…

We analyze von Weizs\"acker view regarding the concept of information in physics. In his view, information arises from the reduction of properties of a physical object to their logical descriptive propositions. The smallest element of a…

We set out a fundamental ontology of atomism in terms of matter points. While being most parsimonious, this ontology is able to match both classical and quantum mechanics, and it remains a viable option for any future theory of cosmology…

This article looks at philosophical aspects and questions that modern astrophysical research gives rise to. Other than cosmology, astrophysics particularly deals with understanding phenomena and processes operating at "intermediate" cosmic…

Bruno Touschek's life as a physicist spanned the period from World War II to the 1970s. He was a key figure in the developments of electron-positron colliders, storage rings, and gave important contributions to theoretical high energy…

I present a discussion of some issues in the ontology of spacetime. After a characterisation of the controversies among relationists, substantivalists, eternalists, and presentists, I offer a new argument for rejecting presentism, the…

This paper investigates the significance of T-duality in string theory: the indistinguishability with respect to all observables, of models attributing radically different radii to space -- larger than the observable universe, or far…

Jim Weatherall has suggested that Einstein's hole argument, as presented by Earman and Norton (1987), is based on a misleading use of mathematics. I argue on the contrary that Weatherall demands an implausible restriction on how mathematics…

General relativity poses serious problems for counterfactual propositions peculiar to it as a physical theory. Because these problems arise solely from the dynamical nature of spacetime geometry, they are shared by all schools of thought on…