物理学史与哲学

This paper discusses Maxwell's demon thought experiment. In recent years, there has been extensive research on Maxwell's demon. I first provide a detailed overview of important historical milestones of Maxwell's demon thought experiment.…

A longstanding problem in natural science and later in physics was the understanding of the existence of ferromagnetism and its disappearance under heating to high temperatures. Although a qualitative description was possible by the…

We discuss some difficulties that arise in attempting to interpret the Page-Wootters and Internal Quantum Reference Frames formalisms, then use a 'final measurement' approach to demonstrate that there is a workable single-world realist…

Following the death of Baron Lor\'{a}nd von E\"{o}tv\"{o}s in 1919, his collaborators Desiderius Pek\'{a}r and Eugen Fekete co-authored a paper in 1922 containing the results of a series of earlier experiments testing the identity of…

I am reporting here how professor Cristian Sorin Calude, henceforth called Cris, became involved in the "Mosquito incident". More generally, the relationship between the single individual vis-a-vis the state or collective is reviewed, with…

The tremendous advances of research into artificial intelligence as well as neuroscience made over the last two to three decades have given further support to a renewed interest into philosophical discussions of the mind-body problem.…

Much has been discussed in the philosophy of science about how we should understand the scientific enterprise. On the one hand, scientific realists believe that empirically adequate theories can be supplemented by interpretations that can…

Credible reasons are presented to reveal that many of the lingering century old enigmas, surrounding the behavior of at least an individual quantum particle, can be comprehended in terms of an objectively real specific wave function. This…

The study examines the palaeoclimatic background and the regional manifestations of the Medieval Climate Anomaly in the Eastern Mediterranean, with a focus on the Byzantine Empire, but also including neighbouring polities. It explores the…

The use of the observed positions of celestial bodies to determine the location of a navigator and to direct vessels, was an aspiration of ancient seafarers. Various peoples, in the Mediterranean as much as in the Indian Ocean, in China as…

We present a new metaphysical framework for physics that is conceptually clear, ontologically parsimonious, and empirically adequate. This framework relies on the notion of self-subsisting structure, that is, a set of fundamental physical…

The technological discoveries and developments since dawn of civilization that resulted in the modern wristwatch are linked to the evolution of Science itself. A history of over 6000 years filled with amazing technical prowess since the…

Solar energy remained an enigma for nearly a century. For a while astronomers and physicists believed that the source of the Sun's energy was gravitational contraction, but the theory turned out to be untenable. Inspired by the new science…

The c-equivalence principle, commonly accepted as true by most physicists, is the unstated assumption that $1/\sqrt{\epsilon_o \mu_o}$ equals the kinematic speed of light. Should someone prove the principle false, it would render the…

While Kepler was still working in Graz during 1598, some letters to his mentor Michael Maestlin demonstrate his interest in astronomical clocks and machines. The first letter, dated January 6, 1598 contains a detailed description of a…

In this contribution I discuss the Kapteyn Astronomical Laboratory during the period of Pieter Johannes van Rhijn's directorate, which lasted from 1921 to 1957. It had developed under the founder Jacobus Cornelius Kapteyn into one of the…

In Logik der Forschung and later works, Karl Popper proposed a set of methodological rules for scientists. Among these were requirements that theories evolve in the direction of increasing content, and that new theories should only be…

If one wants to translate the heliocentric picture of planets moving uniformly on circular orbits about the sun to the perspective of a terrestrial observer, using classical (ancient) geometric means only, one is naturally led to the…

In this work we argue that the power and effectiveness of the Bohrian approach to quantum mechanics is essentially grounded on an inconsistent form of anti-realist realism which supports not only the uncritical tolerance -- in physics --…

We review selected achievements of the late Bogdan Mielnik in the field of theoretical physics, with an emphasis on his attempts to go beyond quantum mechanics. Some of his original views on the problems of contemporary society and…