相关论文: Eddington & Uncertainty
The unification of gravity and quantum mechanics remains one of the most profound open questions in science. With recent advances in quantum technology, an experimental idea first proposed by Richard Feynman is now regarded as a promising…
Julian Schwinger (1918--1994), founder of renormalized quantum electrodynamics, was arguably the leading theoretical physicist of the second half of the 20th century. Thus it is not surprising that he made contributions to gravity theory as…
We first see that the inertia of Newtonian mechanics is absolute and troublesome. General relativity can be viewed as Einstein's attempt to remedy, by making inertia relative, to matter---perhaps imperfectly though, as at least a couple of…
Modern atomic and nuclear physics took its start in the early part of the twentieth century, to a large extent based upon experimental investigations of radioactive phenomena. Foremost among the pioneers of the new kind of physics was…
Most early twentieth century relativists --- Lorentz, Einstein, Eddington, for examples --- claimed that general relativity was merely a theory of the aether. We shall confirm this claim by deriving the Einstein equations using aether…
Our assumption that spacetime is a continuum leads to many challenges in mathematical physics. Singularities, divergent integrals and the like threaten many of our favorite theories, from Newtonian gravity to classical electrodynamics,…
We review, in a historical perspective, developments in physics which led to the emergence of unifying ideas and theories. Some attention is paid to the theoretical programme that started in the second decade of the XXth century and whose…
In the present article, we discuss one of the basic relations of Quantum Mechanics - the Uncertainty Relation (UR). In 1930, few years after Heisenberg, Erwin Schrodinger generalized the famous Uncertainty Relation in Quantum Mechanics,…
General relativity treats spacetime as dynamical and exhibits its breakdown at singularities. This failure is interpreted as evidence that quantum gravity is not a theory formulated within spacetime; instead, it must explain the very…
It is a widespread belief that results like G\"odel's incompleteness theorems or the intrinsic randomness of quantum mechanics represent fundamental limitations to humanity's strive for scientific knowledge. As the argument goes, there are…
Most physics theories are deterministic, with the notable exception of quantum mechanics which, however, comes plagued by the so-called measurement problem. This state of affairs might well be due to the inability of standard mathematics to…
General Relativity is considered to be so far the best gravitation theory. However it is quite hard to use in real situations. The root of these difficulties lays in the non-linearity of the theory. Our aim was not to linearize the theory,…
Our conventional understanding of space-time, as well as our notion of geometry, break down once we attempt to describe the very early stages of the evolution of our universe. The extreme physical conditions near the Big Bang necessitate an…
Einstein's special theory of relativity starts with assumptions about how observations conducted in relatively moving inertial frames must compare. From these assumptions, conclusions can be drawn regarding the laws of physics in any one…
In the past century many fundamental results on unpredictability, undecidability and uncertainty have compelled scientists to grapple with the idea that some questions may never be resolved within our current theories. While this…
The problem of axiomatization of physics formulated by Hilbert as early as 1900 and known as the Sixth Problem of Hilbert is nowadays even more topical than at the moment of its formulation. Axiomatic inconsistency of classic, quantum, and…
A tradition handed down among physicists maintains that classical physics is a perfectly deterministic theory capable of predicting the future with absolute certainty, independently of any interpretations. It also tells that it was quantum…
Isaac Newton is usually associated with the idea of absolute space and time, and with ballistic light-corpuscle arguments. However, Newton was also a proponent of wave/particle duality, and published a "new" variable-density aether model in…
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…
I investigate the question whether G\"odel's undecidability theorems play a crucial role in the search for a unified theory of physics. I conclude that unless the structure of space-time is fundamentally discrete we can never decide whether…