物理学史与哲学

The emergence of quantum theory in the early decades of the twentieth century was accompanied by a wide range of popular science books, all of which presented in words and in images new scientific ideas about the structure of the atom. The…

The precise position of a spectral line emitted by an atomic system depends on the mass of the atomic nucleus and is therefore different for isotopes belonging to the same element. The possible presence of an isotope effect followed from…

Salam's biographies claim that he was opposed to Pakistan's nuclear weapon programme. This is somewhat strange given that he was the senior Science Advisor to the Pakistan government for at least some of the period between 1972 when the…

It is often stated that cosmology is an extreme form of archeology that deals with aeons of time extending back to thousands of millions of years. One talks, for instance, of relics of the early Universe, and phases in the history of the…

In a pioneering exposition of mathematical astronomy for the public, Sir John Herschel attributed the stability of the ring of Saturn to its being eccentric with respect to the planet and lopsided (asymmetric in mass) by a minute amount.…

In the gallery of famous people tracing their origins to Wroc{\l}aw, few are as controversial, as complex, or as tragic as Fritz Haber, ever more distant in the flux of time, yet still stirring emotions. He developed a method for the direct…

There is no doubt that both the special and general theories of relativity capture the imagination. The anti-intuitive properties of the special theory of relativity and its deep philosophical implications, the bizzare and dazzling…

When we try to search for extraterrestrial life and intelligence, we have to follow some guidelines. The first step is to clarify what is to be meant by "Life" and "intelligence", i.e. an attempt to define these words. The word "definition"…

William Wilson Morgan was one of the great astronomers of the twentieth century. He considered himself a morphologist, and was preoccupied throughout his career with matters of classification. Though his early life was difficult, and his…

Quantum mechanics (QM) has attracted a considerable amount of mysticism, in public opinion and even among academic researches, due to some of its conceptually puzzling features, such as the modification of reality by the observer and…

By 1930, at a time when the new physics based on relativity and quantum theory had reached a state of consolidation, problems of a foundational kind began to abound. Physicists began to speak of a new "crisis" and envisage a forthcoming…

Although dark energy is a modern concept, some elements in it can be traced back to the early part of the twentieth century. This paper examines the origin of the idea of zero-point energy and in particular how it appeared in a cosmological…

Arising out of an attempt at a new foundations of mathematics, in which relations are more primitive than sets, and out of the theoretical physicists' concept of underlying causes of empirical phenomena, the idea of a purely mathematical…

`Global' symmetries, such as the boost invariance of classical mechanics and special relativity, can give rise to direct empirical counterparts such as the Galileo-ship phenomenon. However, a widely accepted line of thought holds that…

Charles Lewis Brook, MA, FRAS, FRMetS (1855 - 1939) served as Director of the BAA Variable Star Section from 1910 to 1921. During this time he was not merely interested in collecting the observations of the members (to which he also…

In this essay a critical review of present conceptual problems in current cosmology is provided from a more philosophical point of view. In essence, a digression on how could philosophy help cosmologists in what is strictly their…

We review the Mpemba effect, where intially hot water freezes faster than initially cold water. While the effect appears impossible at first sight, it has been seen in numerous experiments, was reported on by Aristotle, Francis Bacon, and…

Two important and unpleasant events occurred in Albert Einstein's life in 1920: That August an antirelativity rally was held in the large auditorium of the Berlin Philharmonic, and a few weeks later Einstein was drawn into a tense and…

I make the case that the Universe according to unitary (no-collapse) quantum theory has a branching structure, and so can literally be regarded as a "many-worlds" theory. These worlds are not part of the fundamental ontology of quantum…

Essay Review of "Einsteins Gegner. Die \"offentliche Kontroverse um die Relativit\"atstheorie in den 1920er Jahren" by Milena Wazeck.