物理学史与哲学

The history of the debates on the foundational implications of the Bell non-locality theorem displayed very soon a tendency to put the theorem in a perspective that was not entirely motivated by its very assumptions, in particular in term…

Based on string theory's framework, the gauge/gravity duality, also known as holography, has the ability to solve practical problems in low energy physical systems like metals and fluids. Holographic applications open a path for…

We present some historical and philosophical reflections on the paper "On the Relation Between the Expansion and the Mean Density of the Universe", published by Albert Einstein and Willem de Sitter in 1932. In this famous work, Einstein and…

Galileo Galilei was a skilled writer and explored several genres, from the well-known scientific writings (often in the form of dialogs) to theater and poetry. His last published poem, "Mostro son io" (A Monster am I), is a riddle written…

The Everett Box is a device in which an observer and a lethal quantum apparatus are isolated from the rest of the universe. On a regular basis, successive trials occur, in each of which an automatic measurement of a quantum superposition…

The Jesuit missions in South America were an important and unique advance in Christian evangelisation on the continent until the expulsion of the Order in 1767. Although the history and cultural aspects of these missions and their most…

The Universe contains everything that exists, including life. And all that exists, including life, obeys universal physical laws. Do those laws then give adequate foundations for a complete explanation of biological phenomena? We discuss…

Wilhelm (2021) has recently defended a criterion for comparing structure of mathematical objects, which he calls Subgroup. He argues that Subgroup is better than SYM * , another widely adopted criterion. We argue that this is mistaken;…

Cosmological fine-tuning has traditionally been associated with the narrowness of the intervals in which the parameters of the physical models must be located to make life possible. A more thorough approach focuses on the probability of the…

In 1614, the German astronomer Simon Mayr published his claim to have discovered the satellites of Jupiter. Writing in the treatise Mundus Jovialis, Mayr made his assertion in a convoluted but unequivocal manner, earning the displeasure of…

This article explores the metaphor of Science as provider of sharp images of our environment, using the epistemological framework of Objective Cognitive Constructivism. These sharp images are conveyed by precise scientific hypotheses that,…

Eternalism is the view that the past, the present and the future exist simpliciter. A typical argument in favor of this view leans on the relativity of simultaneity. The 'equally real with' relation is assumed to be transitive between…

Eternalism is the view that all times are equally real. The relativity of simultaneity in special relativity backs this up. There is no cosmically extended, self-existing 'now'. This leads to a tricky problem. What makes statements about…

It is often claimed that one cannot locate a notion of causation in fundamental physical theories. The reason most commonly given is that the dynamics of those theories do not support any distinction between the past and the future, and…

What happens to the causal structure of a world when time is reversed? At first glance it seems there are two possible answers: the causal relations are reversed, or they are not. I argue that neither of these answers is correct: we should…

This thesis is about conceptual aspects of gauge theories. Gauge theories lie at the heart of modern physics: in particular, they constitute the standard model of particle physics. At its simplest, the idea of gauge is that nature is best…

It is a common view in philosophy of physics that thermodynamics is a non-fundamental theory. This is motivated in particular by the fact that thermodynamics is considered to be a paradigmatic example for a theory that can be reduced to…

It is widely accepted by physicists and philosophers of physics alike that there are certain contexts in which general relativity will "break down". In such cases, one expects to need some as-yet undiscovered successor theory. This paper…

The rich body of physical theories defines the foundation of our understanding of the world. Its mathematical formulation is based on classical Aristotelian (binary) logic. In the philosophy of science the ambiguities, paradoxes, and the…

In this work, an attempt is presented to understand the contribution of Galileo Galilei in the field of the History of Ideas, from the moment he points a spyglass to the sky. For that, it was previously necessary that Giotto painting the…