物理学史与哲学

A supertask consists in the performance of an infinite number of actions in a finite time. I show that any attempt to carry out a supertask will produce a divergence of the curvature of spacetime, resulting in the formation of a black hole.…

Hideki Yukawa, Sin-itiro Tomonaga and Shoichi Sakata pioneered nuclear and particle physics and left enduring legacies. Their friendly collaboration and severe competition laid the foundation to bring up the active postwar generation of…

Quantum gravity--the marriage of quantum physics with general relativity--is bound to contain deep and important lessons for the nature of physical time. Some of these lessons shall be canvassed here, particularly as they arise from quantum…

This essay presents an accessible introduction to the basic motivations to seek a quantum theory of gravity. It focuses on one approach- loop quantum gravity - as an example of the rich philosophical issues that arise when we try to combine…

Numerous approaches to a quantum theory of gravity posit fundamental ontologies that exclude spacetime, either partially or wholly. This situation raises deep questions about how such theories could relate to the empirical realm, since…

It is shown how the study of blackbody radiation in the early twentieth century by the German physicist Max Planck gave rise to the quantum theory.

Within the framework of relativistic cosmology oscillating or cyclic models of the universe were introduced by A. Friedmann in his seminal paper of 1922. With the recognition of evolutionary cosmology in the 1930s this class of closed…

Fifty years ago two scientists, who celebrate their 80th birthdays in 2011, Alexander V. Voronel and Johannes V. Sengers performed breakthrough experiments that challenged the commonly accepted views on critical phenomena in fluids. Voronel…

It is well-known that Bell's Theorem and other No Hidden Variable theorems have a "retrocausal loophole", because they assume that the values of pre-existing hidden variables are independent of future measurement settings. (This is often…

It is common in the literature on classical electrodynamics and relativity theory that the transformation rules for the basic electrodynamic quantities are derived from the pre-assumption that the equations of electrodynamics are covariant…

The recent literature of astronomy and cosmology has included a good many suggestions for "who first recognized the expansion of the universe?" with cases having been made for Lemaitre, Lundmark, de Sitter, Slipher, Shapley, Friedmann,…

In 1905 the well-known physicist Max Planck was coeditor of the Annalen der Physik, and he accepted Einstein's paper on light quanta for publication, even though he disliked the idea of "light quanta". Einstein's relativity paper was…

According to classical tradition, Thales of Miletus predicted the total solar eclipse that took place on 28 May 585 BCE. Even if some authors have flatly denied the possibility of such a prediction, others have struggled to find cycles…

Prehistoric sanctuaries of Daunia date back several thousand years. During the Neolithic and Bronze Age the farmers in that region dug hypogea and holes whose characteristics suggest a ritual use. In the present note we summarize the…

The degree-of-presence (of the quantum system) concept, accompanying that of the wavefunction-reality postulate, is introduced and studied in two ways. To begin with, an incomplete exposition of the present author's views is given.…

We discuss in detail very little known results obtained by Majorana as early as 1931, regarding the quantum theory of the chemical bond in homopolar molecules, based on the key concept of exchange interaction. After a brief historical…

During the 1920s and 1930s, Italian physicists established strong relationships with scientists from other European countries and the United States. The career of Bruno Rossi, a leading personality in the study of cosmic rays and an Italian…

Daunia is a region in northern Apulia with many interesting archaeological sites, particularly of the Neolithic and Bronze Age. Beginning from the fifth millennium BC, the farmers living in the wide plain of Daunia dug hypogea and holes in…

The Hittite city Sarissa was founded in the 16th century BC and has been systematically constructed. The city gates and the bigger public buildings were arranged at about 45{\deg} relative to the cardinal directions. However, one of the…

The formulas for the entropy of ideal gases mixture and the entropy change in mixing of ideal gases on the basis of the third law of thermodynamics were obtained. It is shown that when using these formulas, the Gibbs paradox within the…