物理学史与哲学

We investigated the evolution and transformation of scientific knowledge in the early modern period, analyzing more than 350 different editions of textbooks used for teaching astronomy in European universities from the late fifteenth…

A demonic being, introduced by Maxwell, to miraculously create thermal non-equilibrium and violate the Second law of thermodynamics, has been among the most intriguing and elusive wishful concepts for over 150 years. Maxwell and his…

The Super-bomb issue contained two problems: feasibility of physical engineering and political need to get H-bomb ASAP. And there were two radically different assessments of these problems by outstanding physicists Hans Bethe and Edward…

The cultural infrastructure that let Galileo invent the modern physics is discussed. The key new element of modern physics was firm belief in its fundamental structure, which could be expressed in the double postulate: 1) There are…

Through a very careful analysis of Dirac's 1932 paper on the Lagrangian in Quantum Mechanics as well as the second and third editions of his classic book {\it The Principles of Quantum Mechanics}, I show that Dirac's contributions to the…

The city of San Cristobal de La Laguna in the Canary Island of Tenerife (Spain) has an exceptional value due to the original conception of its plan. It is an urban system in a grid, outlined by straight streets that form squares, its layout…

Joseph Polchinski (1954-2018), one of the the leading theoretical physicists of the past 50 years, was an exceptionally broad and deep thinker. He made fundamental contributions to quantum field theory, advancing the role of the…

It is impossible to review all the fundamental works of Landau Institute, which made important contribution to physics in general. Here I will discuss only a part of these works, only those which directly influence my own work during 50…

In prior work, we have argued that spacetime functionalism provides tools for clarifying the conceptual difficulties specifically linked to the emergence of spacetime in certain approaches to quantum gravity. We argue in this article that…

As the History of Science Society, which is based in America, holds its annual meeting in Utrecht, one of the key academic centers on the European continent, one may surmise that the field has returned home. Yet, this hardly reflects how…

I briefly summarize my personal opinions on the current status of HEP theory and comment on the so-called "non-empiric confirmation."

How special (or not) is the epoch we are living in? What is the appropriate reference class for embedding the observations made at the present time? How probable -- or else -- is anything we observe in the fulness of time? Contemporary…

We address a recent proposal concerning 'surplus structure' due to Nguyen et al. ['Why Surplus Structure is Not Superfluous.' Br. J. Phi. Sci. Forthcoming.] We argue that the sense of 'surplus structure' captured by their formal criterion…

I study the physical nature of traces (or memories). Surprisingly, (i) systems separation with (ii) temperature differences and (iii) long thermalization times, are sufficient conditions to produce macroscopic traces. Traces of the past are…

The relationship between the chemical picture of an isolated molecule and that arising from the eiegenfunctions of the Schrodinger Coulomb Hamiltonian ror the isolated molecule are examined and discussed.

In his book `Physics and Philosophy', Heisenberg suggested that the quantum world is one of ``potentialities or possibilities'' and that the classical realm is one of ``things or facts''. After ascertaining that his categories most…

This section shows an overview of a recent development of the studies on great space weather events in history. Its discussion starts from the Carrington event and compare its intensity with the extreme storms within the coverage of the…

Textbooks in physics use science history to humanize the subject and motivate students for learning, but they deal exclusively with the heroes of the field and ignore the vast majority of scientists who have not found their way into…

I conceptualise the role of dualities in quantum gravity, in terms of their functions for theory construction. I distinguish between two functions of duality in physical practice: namely, discovering and describing 'equivalent physics', vs.…

This paper will attempt to show that the Doppler principle was of major relevance to Einstein for the genesis of the special theory of relativity.