物理学史与哲学

After describing Bhabha's early life at Bombay, now Mumbai, we discuss his research career at Cambridge, where he made many distinguished contributions to positron physics, cosmic rays and the meson theory. These include theory of…

The subject of uranium isotope separation by the use of gas cenrifuges is a very active one. I present the physics of this process and some of its history.

Almost all the "Voyages Extraordinaires" written by Jules Verne refer to astronomy. In some of them, astronomy is even the leading theme. However, Jules Verne was basically not learned in science. His knowledge of astronomy came from…

The orientations of 23 Giant's Churches, dating from 2500-2000 BCE, located in Ostrobothnia, Finland, have been measured. Many of them are found to have orientations to the risings and settings of the sun on the main solar dates of the…

Despite the lack of experimental confirmation and of unambiguous theoretical proof, superstring theory has long been considered by many the only consistent quantized theory of gravity and the unique viable framework for the unification of…

Bhabha's scientific research contributions are descibed in the context of his life and contemporary science. During the Cambridge period(1927-1939),he worked in Positron theory(Bhabha scattering),Cosmic rays (Bhabha- Heitler theory of…

The pros and cons of various forms of atomism and holism that are applicable both in physical science and today's philosophy of nature are evaluated. To this end, Lewis' thesis of Humean supervenience is presented as an important case study…

Innovations in scholarly communication have resulted in changing roles for authors, publishers and libraries. Traditional roles are disappearing and players are actively seeking or reluctantly assuming new roles. Library roles are changing…

It is shown that Lewis' ontological doctrine of Humean supervenience incorporates at its foundation the so-called separability principle of classical physics. In view of the systematic violation of the latter within quantum mechanics, the…

Textual and archaeological sources are used to provide a synoptic vision of the universe in India. This vision was based on an assumed equivalence of the outer and the inner cosmoses and it is embodied in architecture, music, and art. It…

The foundations of Einstein's first (1907) principle of equivalence are explored and their consequences are stated in terms of invariance under generalized Lorentz transformations, first explored by Hessenberg.

Astronomers in the early 17th century misunderstood the images of stars that they saw in their telescopes. For this reason, the data a skilled observer of that time acquired via telescopic observation of the heavens appeared to support a…

In this essay we describe a platonic metaphysics where time is a fundamental idea such that the passage of time is independent of observers and the laws of physics. Furthermore, time serves to distinguish between a real and an abstract…

We present a talk given by Bryce DeWitt on Quantum Gravity, and present many references. This article is the first installment of the book "The Pursuit of Quantum Gravity 1946-2004; Memoirs of Bryce DeWitt" that Cecile DeWitt is preparing.

We have summarized here the astronomical knowledge of the ancient Hindu astronomers. This knowledge was accumulated from before 1500 B.C. up to around 1200 A.D. In Section \ref{equiv} we have correlated terms used by the Hindu astronomers…

The Copernican Principle (which says the Earth and sun are not unique) should have observational consequences and thus be testable. Galileo Galilei thought he could measure the true angular diameters of stars with his telescope; according…

The astronomical orientation of the acropolis of Alatri, Italy, is analyzed. The results support the idea that this town, with its magnificent polygonal walls, was constructed well before the Roman expansion.

This is a review of Lee Smolin's "The Trouble with Physics". The main gist of the review is that the physics of the past three decades has been rich with new discoveries in a large number of domains. The Standard Model, while providing a…

Maxwell's demon was born in 1867 and still thrives in modern physics. He plays important roles in clarifying the connections between two theories: thermodynamics and information. Here, we present the history of the demon and a variety of…

An attempt to redefine science in the 21st century (BK Jennings, On the Nature of Science, Physics in Canada, 63(7) 2007) has abandoned traditional notions of natural law and objective reality, blurred the distinctions between natural…