相关论文: Elegance, Facts, and Scientific Truths
Can mathematics help us find our way through all the wonders and mysteries of the universe? When physicists describe the laws governing the physical world, mathematics is always involved. Is this due to the fact that the universe is, at…
We pursue the view that quantum theory may be an emergent structure related to large space-time scales. In particular, we consider classical Hamiltonian systems in which the intrinsic proper time evolution parameter is related through a…
Baroque questions of set-theoretic foundations are widely assumed to be irrelevant to physics. In this article, I demonstrate that this assumption is incorrect. I show that the fundamental physical question of whether a theory is…
A review of some basic facts of classical dynamics shows that time, or precisely duration, is redundant as a fundamental concept. Duration and the behaviour of clocks emerge from a timeless law that governs change.
I use Supergravity as a test case to study the role and uses of elegance/simplicity in formulating and evaluating physical models, whose sole criterion is of course truth: an observationally verified description of Nature within a certain…
Constructivist epistemology posits that all truths are knowable. One might ask to what extent constructivism is compatible with naturalized epistemology and knowledge obtained from inference-making using successful scientific theories. If…
This contribution argues that the notion of time used in the scientific modeling of reality deprives time of its real nature. Difficulties from logic paradoxes to mathematical incompleteness and numerical uncertainty ensue. How can the…
For more than half a century, dualities have been at the heart of modern physics. From quantum mechanics to statistical mechanics, condensed matter physics, quantum field theory and quantum gravity, dualities have proven useful in solving…
Quantum mechanics has irked physicists ever since its conception more than 100 years ago. While some of the misgivings, such as it being unintuitive, are merely aesthetic, quantum mechanics has one serious shortcoming: it lacks a physical…
Physics has long lived with a schizophrenia that desires determinism for measured systems while demanding that experimenters decide what to measure on a whim. Intriguingly, such a free will assumption for experimenters has thwarted many…
Quantum mechanics---the theory describing the fundamental workings of nature---is famously counterintuitive: it predicts that a particle can be in two places at the same time, and that two remote particles can be inextricably and…
The relationship between classical and quantum theory is of central importance to the philosophy of physics, and any interpretation of quantum mechanics has to clarify it. Our discussion of this relationship is partly historical and…
We use fast-growing finite and infinite sequences of natural numbers and more complicated constructs to define models of hypercomputation and interpret non-arithmetic predicates, with the strongest extensions reaching full second order…
A property of a system is called actual, if the observation of the test that pertains to that property, yields an affirmation with certainty. We formalize the act of observation by assuming that the outcome correlates with the state of the…
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…
The problem of emergence of classicality from quantum mechanics has been addressed over time through numerous frameworks, from Bohr's correspondence principle to quantum Darwinism. Traditional approaches associate the emergence of…
In this essay, I review the importance of languages in the study of reality, following the well-known aphorisms by Galilei, Bohr and many others. The emphasis on these aspects helps us to understand that it is not meaningful to ask if the…
Quantum theory is indeterministic, but not completely so. When a system is in a pure state there are properties it possesses with certainty, known as actual properties. The actual properties of a quantum system (in a pure state) fully…
Some possible (re)sources of indeterminism and randomness encountered in physics are enumerated. These gaps in the physical laws, if they exist, could possibly be exploited for dualistic interfaces. We also speculate that physical laws and…
We consider the problem of quantum behavior in the finite background. Introduction of continuum or other infinities into physics leads only to technical complications without any need for them in description of empirical observations. The…