物理学史与哲学

The quantization of gravity offers a solution to the presence of singularities in cosmology. Infinities are removed because of the existence of finite quanta of spacetime. This is one of the most important prediction of Loop Quantum…

Harold Knox-Shaw (1885-1970) worked at the Helwan Observatory in Egypt from 1907 to 1924. The Observatory was equipped with a 30-inch (76 cm) reflector that was financed and constructed by the Birmingham industrialist, John Reynolds…

Following the paper of J.D. Jackson [arXiv:0708.4249] on a false attribution of discoveries, equations, and methods [Am. J. Phys. 76, 704-719 (2008)] I consider examples, in which some of independent discoverers are forgotten, and in other…

This year we are celebrating 101 years since the discovery of cosmic rays. They are whizzing all around the Universe, and they occur at very different energies, including the highest particle energies that exist. However, theory predicts an…

Ethnographic evidence indicates that bora (initiation) ceremonial sites in southeast Australia, which typically comprise a pair of circles connected by a pathway, are symbolically reflected in the Milky Way as the 'Sky Bora'. This evidence…

The analysis of the arguments within the limits of the classical thermodynamics that lead to the Gibbs paradox was made. Features of preconditions used in the derivation of the entropy of mixing of ideal gases that caused the appearance of…

The search of a rational explanation of eclipses pervades the beginnings of philosophical and scientific thought. Within this intellectual frame, the knowledge of the "saros cycle" (a cycle of 18 years, 10 or 11 days and 1/3 of a day that…

John Wheeler advocated the principle that information is the foundation of physics and asked us to reformulate physics in terms of bits. The goal is to consider what we know already and work out a new mathematical theory in which space,…

Astronomers have long tracked double stars in efforts to find those that are gravitationally-bound binaries and then to determine their orbits. Early catalogues by the Herschels, Struves, and others began with their own discoveries. In 1906…

This paper traces the early history of the Aharonov-Bohm effect. It appears to have been `discovered' at least three times to my knowledge before the defining paper of Aharonov and Bohm appeared in 1959. The first hint of the effect appears…

Giovanni de la Fontana was a man of the Italian Renaissance of the early fifteenth-century. Besides becoming a doctor of medicine, he was an engineer who used his skills to mimic the magicians, creating a sort of "artificial magic".

In the mid 18th century both theoretical and practical astronomy were cultivated in Milan by Barnabites and Jesuits. In 1763 R.G. Boscovich was appointed to the chair of mathematics of the University of Pavia in the Duchy of Milan, and the…

In the period from about 1890 to 1915 an interdisciplinary and unifying research programme known as "cosmical physics" attracted much scientific and public attention. It typically included aspects of the earth sciences (such as magnetic…

Anthropic reasoning is a critical tool to understand probabilities, especially in a large universe or multiverse. According to anthropic reasoning, we should consider ourselves typical among members of a reference class that must include…

The 20th century has revealed two important limitations of scientific knowledge. On the one hand, the combination of Poincar\'e's nonlinear dynamics and Heisenberg's uncertainty principle leads to a world picture where physical reality is,…

On March 11, 2013 I talked with Warren Wiscombe about his contributions to scientific computer programming, atmospheric science and radiative transfer. Our conversation is divided into three parts related to light scattering, radiative…

The aim of this dissertation is to clarify the debate over the explanation of quantum speedup and to submit a tentative resolution to it. In particular, I argue that the physical explanation for quantum speedup is precisely the fact that…

In January of 1616, the month before before the Roman Inquisition would infamously condemn the Copernican theory as being "foolish and absurd in philosophy", Monsignor Francesco Ingoli addressed Galileo Galilei with an essay entitled…

Dr. Harold Whichello (1870-1945) was a Cheshire General Practitioner and an enthusiastic amateur astronomer. He joined the British Astronomical Association in 1898 and undertook observations for its Lunar, Solar and Variable Star Sections…

Cosmology, whose object is the Universe, is in contact with the religion closer than any other science. We will try to trace the historical change of views on the universe in Ukraine from XI to XVII centuries and show the influence of…