物理学史与哲学

This paper has three main aims: first, to give a pedagogical introduction to Noether's two theorems and their implications for energy conservation in general relativity, which was a central point of discussion between Hilbert, Klein,…

A slight anomaly in optical spectra of the hydrogen atom led Willis E. Lamb to the search for the proton size. As a result, he found the shift of the 2S1/2 level, the first experimental demonstration of quantum electrodynamics. In return, a…

The hydrodynamic response of materials under extreme conditions of pressure, temperature and strain is dependent on the equation of state of the matter in all its states of existence. The Trinity plutonium implosion device development…

One of Russia most prominent Enlightenment figures, Mikhail Lomonosov (1711-1765) was a polymath, scientist and writer, who made important contributions to physics, chemistry, astronomy, literature and education. Among his discoveries were…

An ultimate universal theory -- a complete theory that accounts, via few and simple first principles, for all the phenomena already observed and that will ever be observed -- has been, and still is, the aspiration of most physicists and…

"On February 16, 1951, at the atomic energy pilot plant on Huemul Island, San Carlos de Bariloche, thermonuclear reactions were carried out under control conditions on a technical scale." This is how Gral. Peron announced, on March 24,…

In this paper I formulate Minimal Requirements for Candidate Predictions in quantum field theories, inspired by viewing the standard model as an effective field theory. I then survey standard effective field theory regularization…

General relativity and quantum mechanics have both revealed the relativity of certain notions that were previously thought to be absolute. I clarify the precise sense in which these theories are relational, and I argue that the various…

The present essay provides a new metaphysical interpretation of Relational Quantum Mechanics (RQM) in terms of mereological bundle theory. The essential idea is to claim that a physical system in RQM can be defined as a mereological fusion…

During the second world war, Canada made several important contributions to the wartime work of the Manhattan Project. The three main contributions were: establishing a domestic nuclear research laboratory in Montreal to investigate heavy…

It is well known that the problem of divergence in the physical interpretation of quantum mechanics originating from the uncertainty principle has not yet been resolved. Attempting to clear the constraints and confusion of this situation…

We are interested here in the program of reconstruction of quantum mechanics of the German physicist and philosopher Carl Friedrich von Weizs\"{a}cker, which still has some supporters today. In the major part of this article, we limit…

With Cyrano, Voltaire, and Verne, France provided important milestones in the history of early science fiction. However, even if the genre was not very common a few centuries ago, there were numerous additional contributions by…

The Christy Gadget is the informal name for the plutonium device detonated in the Trinity test on July 16, 1945. In September 1944, Robert Christy, working in the theoretical implosion group, proposed a novel concept that altered the design…

The history and advances of neutronics calculations at Los Alamos during the Manhattan Project through the present is reviewed. We briefly summarize early simpler, and more approximate neutronics methods. We then motivate the need to better…

New measurement and assessment techniques have been applied to the radiochemical re-evaluation of the Trinity Event. Thirteen trinitite samples were dissolved and analyzed using a combination of traditional decay counting methods and the…

The intent of this paper is to discuss the history and origins of Lagrangian hydrodynamic methods for simulating shock driven flows. The majority of the pioneering research occurred within the Manhattan Project. A range of Lagrangian…

We describe the wartime challenges associated with the rapid developments in plutonium chemistry and metallurgy that were necessary to produce the core of the Trinity Device. Beginning with microgram quantities of plutonium metal late in…

This article addresses shortcomings in the existing secondary literature describing the nature and involvement of computing at the World War II Los Alamos Lab. Utilizing rarely used source materials, and identifying points of bias among…

During the Manhattan project a simple formula was developed by Bethe and Feynman in 1943 to estimate the yield of a fission-only nuclear explosion of a uniformly-dense bare-sphere of supercritical fissile material. We have not found any…