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History and Philosophy of Physics papers — page 113

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Phenomenology of Philosophy of Science: OPERA data
I observe that, as the physics side of the OPERA-anomaly story is apparently unfolding, there can still be motivation for philosophy of science to analyze the six months of madness physicists spent…
Giovanni Amelino-CameliaJun 15, 2012
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The Development of Supergravity Grand Unification: Circa 1982-85
The development in the early eighties of supergravity grand unified models with gravity mediated breaking of supersymmetry, has led to a remarkable progress in the study of supersymmetry at…
R. Arnowitt, A. H. Chamseddine, Pran NathJun 14, 2012
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Inertial motion, explanation, and the foundations of classical spacetime theories
I begin by reviewing some recent work on the status of the geodesic principle in general relativity and the geometrized formulation of Newtonian gravitation. I then turn to the question of whether…
James Owen WeatherallJun 14, 2012
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The conceptual origins of gravitational lensing
We critically examine the evidence available of the early ideas on the bending of light due to a gravitational attraction, which led to the concept of gravitational lenses, and attempt to present an…
David Valls-GabaudJun 6, 2012
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A Standing Stone and its Possible Astronomical Alignment - Using Seasonal Shadow and Light Displays in the Neolithic
Sundials and gnomons pointing out dates and times are a beautiful reminder of how we understand the movement of the Sun and use it to structure day and year. They also encapsulate the basic…
D. BrownJun 1, 2012
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Notes on the page proof and publication of "Schallausbreitung in teilweise dissoziierten Gasen" by A. Einstein
Recently, the page-proof, with corrections, of Einstein's 1920 publication on the "Propagation of Sound in Partly Dissociated Gases" was discovered in Leiden. The last two pages of the…
J. L. van VelsenMay 29, 2012
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The Einstein-Nordström Theory
The Finnish physicist Gunnar Nordström developed a competing theory of gravitation to Einstein's 1912-1913 gravitation theory. The equivalence principle was valid in his theory and it also…
Galina WeinsteinMay 27, 2012
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Variation of Mass with Velocity: "Kugeltheorie" or "Relativtheorie"
This paper deals with four topics: The first subject is Abraham's spherical electron, Lorentz's contracted electron and Bücherer's electron. The second topic is Einstein's 1905…
Galina WeinsteinMay 27, 2012
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Biographies of Albert Einstein -- Mastermind of Theoretical Physics
Over the years many have written biographies of Einstein. They all based their biographies on primary sources, archival material: memories and letters of people who were in contact with Einstein,…
Galina WeinsteinMay 24, 2012
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On the Physical Problem of Spatial Dimensions: An Alternative Procedure to Stability Arguments
Why is space 3-dimensional? The first answer to this question, entirely based on Physics, was given by Ehrenfest, in 1917, who showed that the stability requirement for n-dimensional two-body…
Francisco Caruso, Roberto Moreira XavierMay 22, 2012
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Geometry and Astronomy: Pre-Einstein Speculations of Non-Euclidean Space
The recognition that physical space (or space-time) is curved is a product of the general theory of relativity, such as dramatically shown by the 1919 solar eclipse measurements. However, the…
Helge KraghMay 22, 2012
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Beyond Galileo: A translation of Giovanni Battista Riccioli's experiments regarding falling bodies and "air drag", as reported in his 1651 Almagestum Novum
The Italian astronomer Giovanni Battista Riccioli is commonly credited with performing the first precise experiments to determine the acceleration of a freely falling body, but he also went further,…
Christopher M. GraneyMay 21, 2012
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Albert Einstein: Rebellious Wunderkind
Childhood and Schooldays: Albert Einstein, and the family members seemed to have exaggerated the story of Albert who developed slowly, learned to talk late, and whose parents thought he was abnormal.…
Galina WeinsteinMay 21, 2012
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Albert Einstein at the Zürich Polytechnic: a rare mastery of Maxwell's electromagnetic theory
Einstein at the Zürich Polytechnic: he skipped classes, did not attend all the lectures of his Professors, and before going to the examinations he studied instead from the notebooks of his good…
Galina WeinsteinMay 19, 2012
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Albert Einstein and Scientific Theology
In recent centuries the world has become increasingly dominated by empirical evidence and theoretic science in developing worldviews. Advances in science have dictated Roman Catholic doctrine such as…
Max L. E. AndrewsMay 18, 2012
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Albert Einstein's close friends and colleagues from the Patent Office
In the Patent Office Einstein hatched his most beautiful ideas, and there he spent his "Happy Bern Years". These wonderful ideas led to his miraculous year works of 1905. Einstein was not an…
Galina WeinsteinMay 17, 2012
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Epistemological-Scientific Realism and the Onto-Relationship of Inferentially Justified and Non-Inferentially Justified Beliefs
The traditional concept of knowledge is a justified true belief. The bulk of contemporary epistemology has focused primarily on that task of justification. Truth seems to be a quite obvious…
Max L. E. AndrewsMay 13, 2012
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Reflections on the nature of genius: on the 300th anniversary of Mikhail Lomonosov (1711-1765)
This presentation goes beyond celebratory narration of the life and scientific achievements of Russia's first modern scientist Mikhail Vasilievich Lomonosov (1711-1765). Coming from the notion of…
V. ShiltsevMay 8, 2012
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Space and Time as Containers of the "Physical Material World" with some Conceptual and Epistemological Consequences in Modern Physics
A particular science is not only defined by its object of study, but also by the point of view and method under which it considers that same object. Taking space and time as an illustrative example,…
Mauricio Mondragon, Luis LopezMay 8, 2012
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Einstein and Tagore, Newton and Blake, Everett and Bohr: the dual nature of reality
There are two broad opposing classes of attitudes to reality (realist vs idealist, material vs mental) with corresponding attitudes to knowledge (objective vs subjective, scientific vs romantic). I…
Anthony SudberyMay 7, 2012
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Zeno's Paradoxes in the Mechanical World View
There is a very reason to consider that to solve Zeno's paradoxes is to propose the theory of mechanical world view. We believe that this is not only our opinion but also most philosophers'…
Shiro IshikawaMay 7, 2012
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Einstein's Clocks and Langevin's Twins
In 1905 Einstein presented the Clock Paradox and in 1911 Paul Langevin expanded Einstein's result to human observers, the "Twin Paradox." I will explain the crucial difference between…
Galina WeinsteinMay 4, 2012
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Thomas Hinsley Astbury: from an English market town schoolroom to the internal constitution of the stars
T. H. Astbury (1858-1922) was for many years the much-respected headmaster of a boys' junior school in the English market town of Wallingford. By night he was a dedicated amateur astronomer who…
Jeremy ShearsMay 4, 2012
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From change to spacetime: an Eleatic journey
I present a formal ontological theory where the basic building blocks of the world can be either things or events. In any case, the result is a Parmenidean worldview where change is not a global…
Gustavo E. RomeroMay 3, 2012
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The nature of the present
The feeling of a moving present or `now' seems to form part of our most basic perceptions about reality. Such a present, however, is not reflected in any of our theories of the physical world. In…
Gustavo E. RomeroMay 3, 2012
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