物理学史与哲学

The heaviest of the transuranic elements known as superheavy elements (SHE) are produced in nuclear reactions in a few specialized laboratories located in Germany, the U.S., Russia, and Japan. The history of this branch of physical science…

This editorial introduces the J. Phys. B: Atomic, Molecular and Optical Physics Special Issue "Atomic and Molecular Processes in the Ultracold Regime, the Chemical Regime and Astrophysics" dedicated to Professor Alexander Dalgarno…

The Baltic meetings of astronomers from Northern Germany and Scandinavia began in 1957 and gathered up to 70 participants. Reports of the presentations are available from all meetings, providing an overview of the interests of astronomers…

This is a personal account of how I became an astronomer. Fascinated by the stars and planets in the dark sky over Lolland, an island 100 km south of Copenhagen, the interest in astronomy was growing. Encouraged by my teachers, I polished…

We present a historical review of Einstein's 1917 paper 'Cosmological Considerations in the General Theory of Relativity' to mark the centenary of a key work that set the foundations of modern cosmology. We find that the paper followed as a…

Dutch book arguments have been applied to beliefs about the outcomes of measurements of quantum systems, but not to beliefs about quantum objects prior to measurement. In this paper, we prove a quantum version of the probabilists' Dutch…

Deconstruction of the theme of the 2017 FQXi essay contest is already an interesting exercise in its own right: Teleology is rarely useful in physics --- the only known mainstream physics example (black hole event horizons) has a very mixed…

Abner Shimony was an exceptional human being and a remarkably lucid and penetrating thinker whose work centered on some of the most significant physical and philosophical questions of his era at their nexus. He approached these questions…

Principles are central to physical reasoning, particularly in the search for a theory of quantum gravity (QG), where novel empirical data is lacking. One principle widely adopted in the search for QG is UV completion: the idea that a theory…

I discuss several issues related to "classical" spacetime structure. I review Galilean, Newtonian, and Leibnizian spacetimes, and briefly describe more recent developments. The target audience is undergraduates and early graduate students…

With the manuscript of the Sidereus Nuncius preserved at the Biblioteca Nazionale of Florence are included 7 watercolors of the Moon painted by Galileo himself. We suggest that some of them, and in particular the drawing of the 30 Nov 1609…

In this paper, the theoretical terms of contemporary cosmology are examined as intellectual artefacts. An ontology and methodology are introduced for this purpose, which includes defining the concept of a hypothetical object. Introducing a…

The assumption that we are typical observers plays a core role in attempts to make multiverse theories empirically testable. A widely shared worry about this assumption is that it suffers from systematic ambiguity concerning the reference…

Fine-tuning in physics and cosmology is often used as evidence that a theory is incomplete. For example, the parameters of the standard model of particle physics are "unnaturally" small (in various technical senses), which has driven much…

I provide an alternative characterization of a "standard of rotation" in the context of classical spacetime structure that does not refer to any covariant derivative operator.

The art of advertising one's scientific achievements, of which Galileo was an early master, is a trademark of successful modern science. Dedicated believers and mystics of science, such as Kepler, are less popular. Yet, an alleged rigorous…

This new book by cosmologists Geraint F. Lewis and Luke A. Barnes is another entry in the long list of cosmology-centered physics books intended for a large audience. While many such books aim at advancing a novel scientific theory, A…

Claude Francis Milliet Dechales described the Coriolis effect in his 1674 Cursus seu Mundus Mathematicus. Dechales discussed and illustrated the deflection of both falling bodies and of projectiles launched toward the poles that should…

The logic of gauge theory is considered by tracing its development from general relativity to Yang-Mills theory, through Weyl's two gauge theories. A handful of elements---which for want of better terms can be called \emph{geometrical…

Since its very beginnings, topology has forged strong links with physics and the last Nobel prize in physics, awarded in 2016 to Thouless, Haldane and Kosterlitz " for theoretical discoveries of topological phase transitions and topological…