相关论文: Visions of Revolutions: Microphysics and Cosmophys…

In this essay a critical review of present conceptual problems in current cosmology is provided from a more philosophical point of view. In essence, a digression on how could philosophy help cosmologists in what is strictly their…

The idea of possible time or space variations of the `fundamental' constants of nature, although not new, is only now beginning to be actively considered by large numbers of researchers in the particle physics, cosmology and astrophysics…

Whereas physics in the period from about 1880 to 1910 experienced a steady growth, it was also a revolutionary period in which the foundations of the physical world picture were criticized and reconsidered. Generally speaking, from about…

Several problems in cosmology and astrophysics are described in which critical phenomena of various types may play a role. These include the organization of the disks of spiral galaxies, various aspects of the problem of structure formation…

The radical changes in the concepts and approach in Physics at the turn of the Nineteenth century were so deep, that is acknowledged as a revolution. However, in 1970 Thomas Kuhn's careful reconstruction of the researches on the black body…

I give a review of the conceptual issues that arise in theories of quantum cosmology. I start by emphasising some features of ordinary quantum theory that also play a crucial role in understanding quantum cosmology. I then give motivations…

Astrophysics and cosmology can be used to test the standard model of particle physics under conditions and over distance and time scales not accessible to laboratory experiments. Most of the astrophysical observations are in good agreement…

The first crisis in the geometry arose in the beginning of XIXth century, when the mathematicians rejected the non-Euclidean geometry as a possible geometry of the real world. Now we observe unreasonable rejection of the non-Riemannian…

I present the case for fundamental physics experiments in space playing an important role in addressing the current "dark energy'' crisis. If cosmological observations continue to favor a value of the dark energy equation of state parameter…

The dramatic confrontation between new observations and theories of the early and recent universe makes cosmology one of the most rapidly advancing fields in the physical sciences. The universe is a unique laboratory in which to probe…

Influenced by the renaissance of general relativity that came to pass in the 1950s, the character of cosmology fundamentally changed in the 1960s as it became a well-established empirical science. Although observations went to dominate its…

Laymen and sometimes even physicists think of natural sciences, in particular of theoretical and mathematical physics often as subjects, which unfold according to an intrinsic logical pattern, with the limitations being set only by the…

Modern fundamental physics poses new questions for philosophy, which, as it seems to us, have not yet received appropriate attention from philosophers of science. This paper formulates a number of such questions in order to present them to…

The descriptions of the quantum realm and the macroscopic classical world differ significantly not only in their mathematical formulations but also in their foundational concepts and philosophical consequences. When and how physical systems…

When one takes into account gravitation, the measurement of space and time cannot be carried out with infinite accuracy. When quantum mechanics is reformulated taking into account this lack of accuracy, the resolution of the measurement…

We still lack any consensus about what one is actually talking about as one uses quantum mechanics. There is a gap between the abstract terms in which the theory is couched and the phenomena the theory enables each of us to account for so…

We have critically compared different approaches to the cosmological constant problem, which is at the edge of elementary particle physics and cosmology. This problem is deeply connected with the difficulties formulating a theory of quantum…

Developments in theoretical cosmology in the recent decades show a close connection with particle physics, quantum gravity and unified theories. Answers or hints to many fundamental questions in cosmology like the homogeneity and isotropy…

Ideological considerations have always influenced science, but rarely as directly and massively as in the Soviet Union during the early Cold War period. Cosmology was among the sciences that became heavily politicized and forced to conform…

Physical cosmology tries to understand the Universe at large with its origin and evolution. Observational and experimental situations in cosmology do not allow us to proceed purely based on the empirical means. We examine in which sense our…