物理学史与哲学

Thanu Padmanabhan was a renowned Indian theoretical physicist known for his research in general relativity, cosmology, and quantum gravity. In an extraordinary career spanning forty-two years, he published more than three hundred research…

America's first urban centres were allegedly located at the Supe Valley sites in Peru. After investigating the location and the orientation of the main built structures, we show that it is not only the presence of the River Supe that…

From the perspective of the physics of complex systems (1) we deal with the current state of mod-ern physics including the crisis in physics demonstrated through its epistemological, psychological, economical as well as the social context;…

As a neuroscientist and a theoretical physicist, both working on time, we have decided to open a direct dialogue to examine if the apparent discrepancies regarding the nature of time can be composed.

In this work, we measure the volumetric mean radius of the Earth, reproducing the historical experiment of Eratosthenes, carried out around 240 BC, in the ancient cities of Siena and Alexandria. Here, we perform measurements in the cities…

The mind-body problem is reviewed in the context of a non-technical account of quantum information theory. The importance of clearly defining: `what is physical?' is highlighted, since only then can we give meaning to the concept…

The calculation of the electron g-factor was carried out in 1950 by Karplus and Kroll. Seven years later, Petermann detected and corrected a serious error in the calculation of a Feynman diagram. Although it is hard to believe, neither the…

String theorists are certain that they are practicing physicists. Yet, some of their recent critics deny this. This paper argues that this conflict is really about who holds authority in making rational judgment in theoretical physics. At…

In this article we present the second part of our historical survey on quantum Monte Carlo methods. IWe focus on the simulations performed at a finite temperature and based on the path-integral formulation of quantum mechanics. We introduce…

In this paper we consider the observables describing fundamental spatiotemporal properties and relations in the context of Quantum Gravity (QG). As we will show, in both Loop Quantum Gravity and in String Theory, these observables are…

Based on a clear ontology of material individuals, we analyze in detail the factual semantics of quantum theory, and argue that the basic mathematical formalism of quantum theory is just okay with (a certain form of ) realism and that it is…

In this article, the evolution of the ideas about the fourth spatial dimension is presented, starting from those which come out within classical Euclidean geometry and going through those arose in the framework of non-Euclidean geometries,…

Within the general discussion of space and its dimensionality, Aristotle's position is of the greatest relevance, as one will have the opportunity to argue and discuss in this article.

A general sketch on how the problem of space dimensionality depends on anthropic arguments is presented. Several examples of how life has been used to constraint space dimensionality (and vice-versa) are reviewed. In particular, the…

The article is an historical overview of some of the major contributions from different areas of Science with which, for centuries, it has been built up a scientific, sound and consistent vision of the atom. Some experiments that led us to…

Many physicists have thought that absolute time became otiose with the introduction of Special Relativity. William Lane Craig disagrees and argues that although relativity is empirically adequate within a domain of application, relativity…

Famously, Klein and Einstein were embroiled in an epistolary dispute over whether General Relativity has any physically meaningful conserved quantities. In this paper, we explore the consequences of Noether's second theorem for this debate,…

A chronicle describing the historical context and the development of ideas and experiments leading to the discovery of the back-bending phenomenon in rapidly rotating atomic nuclei some 50 years ago is presented. The moment of inertia of…

Requiring causality on measurements in quantum field theory seems to impose strong conditions on a self-adjoint operator to be really measurable. This may seem limiting and artificial in the operator language of algebraic quantum field…

For several decades a portrait of Johannes Kepler has been widely circulating among professional astronomers, scientific and academic institutions, and the general public. Despite its provenance and identification having been questioned in…