物理学史与哲学

Some particular facets of the numerous works by Marcos Moshinsky and Yurii Fedorovich Smirnov are presented in these notes. The accent is put on some of the common interests of Yurii and Marcos in physics, theoretical chemistry, and…

It is deeply entrenched dogma that relativity theory prohibits superluminal propagation. It is also experimentally well-established that under some circumstances, classical electromagnetic fields propagate through a dielectric medium with…

In this written version of a pre-dinner-speech at the workshop "The Nature of Gravity" at ISSI I illustrate Pauli's science primarily with material that has not formally been published by him, but was communicated in detailed letters to…

After revisiting some high points of particle physics and QFT of the two decades from 1960 to 1980, I comment on the work by Jorge Andre Swieca. I explain how it fits into the quantum field theory during these two decades and draw attention…

In memory of the famous physicist Bruno Pontecorvo, whereof is just occurred the centenary anniversary of the birth and the twentieth anniversary of the death, this paper traces the scientific and human adventure of the italian scientist,…

A brief but complete historical survey of the theory of equilibrium figures from its early origins, dating back to 17th-century, until the latest 20th-century developments, with a view towards its applications, is carried out.

This paper deals with the Berry phase, and the ontology of the electromagnetic vector potential. When the state of the system is gauge symmetric, the vector potential may be interpreted as a convenient tool of a mathematical formulation,…

This contribution to the book in honour of J.S. Bell will probably differ from the remaining ones, in particular since only a part of it will be devoted to specific technical arguments. In fact I have considered appropriate to share with…

The paper compares dispositionalism about laws of nature with primitivism. It argues that while the distinction between these two positions can be drawn in a clear-cut manner in classical mechanics, it is less clear in quantum mechanics,…

The first prediction of the existence of "relict radiation" or radiation remaining from the "Big Bang" was made in 1948. This derived from the seminal dissertation work of Ralph A. Alpher. He was a doctoral student of George A. Gamow and…

A deep and detailed historiographical analysis of a particular case study concerning the so-called Lee-Yang theorem of theoretical statistical mechanics of phase transitions, has emphasized what real historical roots underlie such a case…

We examine physicists' charge of ad hocness against the Higgs mechanism in the standard model of elementary particle physics. We argue that even though this charge never rested on a clear-cut and well-entrenched definition of "ad hoc", it…

Critical phenomena were discovered by Cagniard de la Tour in 1822, who died 150 years ago. In order to mark this anniversary, the context and the early history of his discovery is reviewed. We then follow with a brief sketch of the history…

Cultural heritage relating to the sky in the form of sundials, old observatories and the like, are commonly found in many cities in the Old World, but rarely in the New. This paper examines astronomical heritage embodied in the Barolo…

In 1964, a new particle was proposed by several groups to answer the question of where the masses of elementary particles come from; this particle is usually referred to as the Higgs particle or the Higgs boson. In July 2012, this Higgs…

We briefly give a very simple picture about one of the most remarkable results of Matvej Petrovich Bronstein concerning the quantization of the gravitational waves showing also that the linearized Einstein equations of the paper: Phys.Rev.…

I wish to discuss a large, interwoven set of topics pointed at in the title above. Much of what I say is highly speculative, some is testable, some is, at present, surely not. It is, I hope, useful, to set these ideas forth for our…

In this short paper a new thought experiment has been introduced to illustrate the famous Heisenberg's uncertainty principle based on Otto-Wiener's experiment (1890) associated with standing light waves. This illustration is quite easy as…

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…

Historically, the eccentricity of Sommerfeld orbits from quantization conditions in either parabolic or spherical coordinates was found to differ in almost all cases. To do the orbit comparison correctly, one must use amended instead of…