物理学史与哲学

Exactly 500 years ago, Nicolaus Copernicus drew a lattice of lines on a panel above the doorway to his rooms at Olsztyn Castle, then in the Bishopric of Warmia. Although its design has long been regarded as some kind of reflecting vertical…

This work outlines the novel application of the empirical analysis of causation, presented by Kutach, to the study of information theory and its role in physics. The central thesis of this paper is that causation and information are…

Starting from the observation that the simplest form of forced mechanical oscillation serves as a standard model for analyzing a broad variety of resonance processes in many fields of physics and engineering, the remarkably slow development…

It is shown that the correct expressions for momentum and kinetic energy of a particle moving at high speed were already implicit in physics going back to Maxwell. The demonstration begins with a thought experiment of Einstein by which he…

We created and analyzed a citation history of papers covering measurements of Newtons constant of gravity from 1686 to 2016. Interest concerning the true value of the gravitational constant was most intense in the late 90s to early 2000s…

Brief recollections of two giants of physics, their origins, similarities and differences.

The principle of `information causality' can be used to derive an upper bound---known as the `Tsirelson bound'---on the strength of quantum mechanical correlations, and has been conjectured to be a foundational principle of nature. To date,…

The mausoleums of the emperors and of some members of the royal family of the Western Han Chinese dynasty, popularly known as Chinese pyramids, are a spectacular ensemble of tombs covered by a huge earth mounds, spread in the outskirts of…

A short scientific biography is given of physicist Paul Wesson (1949-2015), who published over 300 works encompassing the fields of astrobiology, astrophysics, geophysics, cosmology, and relativity; and who was particularly associated with…

Naturalness is an extra-empirical quality that aims to assess plausibility of a theory. Finetuning measures are often deputized to quantify the task. However, knowing statistical distributions on parameters appears necessary. Such…

Understanding the emergence of a tangible 4-dimensional space-time from a quantum theory of gravity promises to be a tremendously difficult task. This article makes the case that this task may not have to be carried. Space-time as we know…

In this paper, we discuss the role of Mathematics in articulating reality in theoretical Physics. We propose a parallel between empirical and theoretical work and investigate how scientists can also speak about reality without performing…

In a recent article, Werndl and Frigg discuss the relationship between the Boltzmannian and Gibbsian framework of statistical mechanics, addressing in particular the question when equilibrium values calculated in both frameworks agree. In…

A telephone sender following the design of Johann Philipp Reis made by W Ladd, London 1863, in the Natural Philosophy Collection of the University of Aberdeen is illustrated and described. How Reis came to invent a telephone some 15 years…

English: To the Meriam Mir people of Mer (Murray Island) in the eastern Torres Strait, bright meteors are an important element of death customs and beliefs. We draw from a combination of ethno-historic studies and interviews with Meriam…

Although the Saha ionization equation is a standard topic in advanced statistical physics and most professional physicists would have some knowledge of it, the exact nature of Meghnad Saha's contributions in this subject is not widely…

In electromagnetism, as in Newton's mechanics, action is always equal to reaction. The force from the electromagnetic field on matter is balanced by an equal and opposite force from matter on the field. We generally speak only of forces…

In this paper we address a deeply interesting debate that took place at the end of the last millennia between David Mermin, Adan Cabello and Michiel Seevinck, regarding the meaning of relationalism within quantum theory. In a series of…

The Free Lunch Principle: Nature thrives on freebies. She chooses nothing, and no one helps Her. She must use canonical mathematical structures as there is no one to tell Her otherwise. With this I show where variational principles are…

A classic problem in general relativity, long studied by both physicists and philosophers of physics, concerns whether the geodesic principle may be derived from other principles of the theory, or must be posited independently. In a recent…