物理学史与哲学
In December 1911, Max Abraham published a paper on gravitation at the basis of which was Albert Einstein's 1911 June conclusion about a relationship between the velocity of light and the gravitational potential. In February 1912, Einstein…
Sommerfeld shows that the Wien displacement formula implies the existence of Planck's constant.
Many have proposed that free will would use quantum indeterminism. Strict adherence to the Born rule, which follows from the no-signal condition, seems to block this possibility. I propose here that if state collapse really does occur then…
Modern atomic and nuclear physics took its start in the early part of the twentieth century, to a large extent based upon experimental investigations of radioactive phenomena. Foremost among the pioneers of the new kind of physics was…
It is argued that it is possible to give operational meaning to free will and the process of making a choice without employing metaphysics.
Wigner found unreasonable the "effectiveness of mathematics in the natural sciences". But if the mathematics we use to describe nature is simply a coded expression of our experience then its effectiveness is quite reasonable. Its…
Inspired by the Penrose-Hameroff thesis, we are intuitively led to examine an intriguing correspondence of 'induction' (by fields), with the complex phenomenon of (metabolism-sustained) consciousness: Did sequences of associated induction…
The mechanism of spontaneous symmetry breaking in quantum systems is briefly reviewed, rectifying part of the standard wisdom on logical and mathematical grounds. The crucial role of the localization properties of the time evolution for the…
I discuss Albert Einstein's 1916 General Theory of Relativity. I show that in Einstein's 1916 review paper, "the Foundation of the General Theory of Relativity", he derived his November 25, 1915 field equations with an additional term on…
I discuss Einstein's path-breaking November 1915 General Relativity papers. I show that Einstein's field equations of November 25, 1915 with an additional term on the right hand side involving the trace of the energy-momentum tensor appear…
I discuss Albert Einstein's 1914 review paper, "The Formal Foundation of the General Theory of Relativity" from two points of view: the main elements in the paper that appear to have led to the downfall of the Einstein-Grossman theory; and…
Since the emergence in the late 1960s of the standard hot big-bang theory, cosmology has been dominated by finite-age models. However, the rival view that the universe has existed for an indefinite time has continued to be defended by a…
Who discovered the expanding universe? Was it Hubble, or Lema\^itre, or was it just the end result of a long series of investigations? In this article we summarise the main steps and contributions that led to one of the most exciting…
Tycho Brahe, the most prominent and accomplished astronomer of his era, made measurements of the apparent sizes of the Sun, Moon, stars, and planets. From these he showed that within a geocentric cosmos these bodies were of comparable…
This lecture presents a brief overview of the early history of string theory and supersymmetry. It describes how the S-matrix theory program for understanding the strong nuclear force evolved into superstring theory, which is a promising…
In the present article we provide a brief introduction to the Life and Works of Indian astronomer R. G. Chandra.
A scientific introduction and short biography to accompany the translation of Matvei P. Bronstein, "Quantum theory of weak gravitational fields", Phys. Zeitschr. der Sowjetunion 9, 140 157 (1936), to appear as a "Golden Oldie" in JGRG.
We examine the claim made by Hara et al. in 1969 of the observation of a 10^19 eV cosmic ray extensive air shower using the air fluorescence technique. We find that it is likely that fluorescence light was observed, confirming this as the…
The Norwegian physicist Lars Vegard may have been the first to propose electron configurations for all the chemical elements, from hydrogen to uranium, on the basis of quantum atomic theory. This he did in papers of 1918-1919 in which he…
Henri Poincare's work on mathematical features of the Lorentz transformations was an important precursor to the development of special relativity. In this paper I compare the approaches taken by Poincare and Einstein, aiming to come to an…