相关论文: The Meaning of Dimensions

Without a doubt many problems in physics arise as a consequence of our philosophical conception of the world. In this contribution however we endeavor to alleviate this scenario by putting forward a philosophical approach under which some…

In contemporary theoretical physics, the powerful notion of symmetry stands for a web of intricate meanings among which I identify four clusters associated with the notion of transformation, comprehension, invariance and projection. While…

Different aspects of relativity, mainly in a canonical formulation, relevant for the question "Is spacetime nothing more than a mathematical space (which describes the evolution in time of the ordinary three-dimensional world) or is it a…

This short essay traces the conceptual history of micro- and macroscopicity in the context of physical science. By focusing on three distinct episodes spanning five centuries, we show the scientific and philosophical meanings of this…

Conceptual Scaling is a useful standard tool in Formal Concept Analysis and beyond. Its mathematical theory, as elaborated in the last chapter of the FCA monograph, still has room for improvement. As it stands, even some of the basic…

Measurements play a crucial role in doing physics: Their results provide the basis on which we adopt or reject physical theories. In this note, we examine the effect of subjecting measurements themselves to our experience. We require that…

The signaling dimension of a physical system is the minimum dimension of a classical channel that can reproduce the set of input-output correlations attainable by the given system. Here we put the signaling dimension into perspective by…

This article presents a novel interpretation of quantum mechanics. It extends the meaning of ``measurement'' to include all property-indicating facts. Intrinsically space is undifferentiated: there are no points on which a world of locally…

Cognitive Dimensions is a framework for analyzing human-computer interaction. It is used for meta-analysis, that is, for talking about characteristics of systems without getting bogged down in details of a particular implementation. In this…

Although black holes are objects of central importance across many fields of physics, there is no agreed upon definition for them, a fact that does not seem to be widely recognized. Physicists in different fields conceive of and reason…

Time, space, and matter are categories of our reasoning, whose properties appear to be fundamental. However, these require a scrutiny as in the extreme regime of the primordial universe these present quantum properties. What does it mean…

Our knowledge about the universe has increased tremendously in the last three decades or so --- thanks to the progress in observations --- but our understanding has improved very little. There are several fundamental questions about our…

In gravitational theories with extra dimensions, it is argued that the existence of a positive vacuum energy generically implies catastrophic instability of our four-dimensional world. The most generic instability is a decompactification…

Is reality three-dimensional and becoming real (Presentism), or is reality four-dimensional and becoming illusory (Eternalism)? Both options raise difficulties. I argue that we do not need to be trapped by this dilemma. There is a third…

A general sketch of how the problem of space dimensionality depends on Anthropic arguments is presented. A new argument in favor of a stable scenario for space dimensionality for a time scale longer than that required for the existence of…

The quantities of dimension one - known as the dimensionless quantities - are widely used in physics. However, the debate about some dimensionless units is still open. The paper brings new interrelated arguments that lead to the conclusion…

A physical theory of the world is presented under the unifying principle that all of nature is laid out before us and experienced through the passage of time. The one-dimensional progression in time is opened out into a multi-dimensional…

Epistemic interpretations of quantum mechanics fail to address the puzzle posed by the occurrence of probabilities in a fundamental physical theory. This is a puzzle about the physical world, not a puzzle about our relation to the physical…

The question of the nature of space around us has occupied thinkers since the dawn of humanity, with scientists and philosophers today implicitly assuming that space is something that exists objectively. Here we show that this does not have…

Discussion of some aspects of the concept of time for a general audience: nature of time, A- and B-series, time in physics, the "now", measurement of time, definition of time units, time's arrow, relativity of time, relativity of…