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History and Philosophy of Physics papers — page 114

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A Discussion of Special Relativity
Five topics: A rigid body does not exist in the special theory of relativity; distant simultaneity defined with respect to a given frame of reference without any reference to synchronized clocks;…
Galina WeinsteinMay 1, 2012
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Kuhn Losses Regained: Van Vleck from Spectra to Susceptibilities
We follow the trajectory of John H. Van Vleck from his 1926 Bulletin for the National Research Council (NRC) on the old quantum theory to his 1932 book, The Theory of Electric and Magnetic…
Charles Midwinter, Michel JanssenMay 1, 2012
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Poincaré's Dynamics of the Electron - A Theory of Relativity?
Before 1905, Poincaré stressed the importance of the method of clocks and their synchronization, but unlike Einstein, magnet and conductor (asymmetries in Lorentz's theory regarding the…
Galina WeinsteinApr 30, 2012
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Did Poincaré explore the inertial mass-energy equivalence?
Einstein was the first to explore the inertial mass-energy equivalence. In 1905 Einstein showed that a change in energy is associated with a change in inertial mass equal to the change in energy…
Galina WeinsteinApr 30, 2012
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(Never) Mind your p's and q's: Von Neumann versus Jordan on the Foundations of Quantum Theory
In two papers entitled "On a new foundation [Neue Begründung] of quantum mechanics," Pascual Jordan (1927b,g) presented his version of what came to be known as the Dirac-Jordan statistical…
Anthony Duncan, Michel JanssenApr 29, 2012
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Quantum fields are not fields. Comment on "There are no particles, there are only fields," by Art Hobson [Am. J. Phys. 81(3), 211-223 (2013)]
We comment on a recent paper by Hobson, explaining that quantum "fields" are no more fields than quantum "particles" are particles, so that the replacement of a particle ontology by…
Massimiliano Sassoli de BianchiApr 28, 2012
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John Goodricke, Edward Pigott, and Their Study of Variable Stars
John Goodricke and Edward Pigott, working in York, England, between 1781 and 1786, determined the periods of variation of eclipsing binaries such as Algol and Beta Lyrae and speculated that the…
L. M. FrenchApr 27, 2012
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There are no particles, there are only fields
Quantum foundations are still unsettled, with mixed effects on science and society. By now it should be possible to obtain consensus on at least one issue: Are the fundamental constituents fields or…
Art HobsonApr 19, 2012
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The Linguistic Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics
About twenty years ago, we proposed the mathematical formulation of Heisenberg's uncertainty principle, and further, we concluded that Heisenberg's uncertainty principle and EPR-paradox are…
Shiro IshikawaApr 17, 2012
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Did Mileva Marić assist Einstein in writing his 1905 path breaking papers?
Writers read Einstein's letter to Marić from 1901 in which he wrote: "bringing our work on relative motion to a successful conclusion!" What came afterwards was boosted by a claim that…
Galina WeinsteinApr 16, 2012
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Albert Einstein and the Fizeau 1851 Water Tube Experiment
In 1895 Hendrik Antoon Lorentz derived the Fresnel dragging coefficient in his theory of immobile ether and electrons. This derivation did not explicitly involve electromagnetic theory at all.…
Galina WeinsteinApr 16, 2012
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Genesis of general relativity - Discovery of general relativity
The intermediate stage of the development of general relativity is inseparable of Marcel Grossmann's mathematical assistance. Einstein acknowledges Grossmann's help during 1912-1914 to the…
Galina WeinsteinApr 16, 2012
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Doubting, Testing, and Confirming Galileo: A translation of Giovanni Battista Riccioli's experiments regarding the motion of a falling body, 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. Riccioli has been…
Christopher M. GraneyApr 15, 2012
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Spreading scientific philosophies with instruments: the case of Atwood's machine
We study how the paradigm of Newton's science, based on the organization of scientific knowledge as a series of mathematical laws, was definitively accepted in science courses - in the last…
S. Esposito, E. SchettinoApr 13, 2012
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Einstein Chases a Light Beam
This is a prelude to a book which I intend to publish. This paper describes my temporary thoughts on Einstein's pathway to the special theory of relativity. See my papers on my thoughts on…
Galina WeinsteinApr 9, 2012
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The Universe, the Cold War, and Dialectical Materialism
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…
Helge KraghApr 7, 2012
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Emergence: Key physical issues for deeper philosophical inquiries
A sketch of three senses of emergence and a suggestive view on the emergence of time and the direction of time is presented. After trying to identify which issues philosophers interested in emergent…
Bei-Lok HuApr 4, 2012
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Limb Projections on Saturn
We present two unusual observations of Saturn recorded during the early years of the twentieth century
Jeremy Shears, Richard BaumApr 3, 2012
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John Ellard Gore: of immensity and minuteness
John Ellard Gore FRAS, MRIA (1845-1910) was an Irish amateur astronomer and prolific author of popular astronomy books. His main observational interest was variable stars, of which he discovered…
Jeremy ShearsMar 29, 2012
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Einstein on the Impossibility of Superluminal Velocities
In 1907 Einstein discussed with Wilhelm Wien the occurrences of superluminal velocities in dispersive and absorptive media. Einstein tried to present to Wien an expression for the group velocity in…
Galina WeinsteinMar 22, 2012
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Anti-positivism, theoretical sciences and relativity in the Argentina of the 1920s
Observing the early years of the 1920's, it is possible to detect a fracture in the perception of relativity theory in Argentina, characterized by the publication of a series of strictly…
Alejandro Gangui, Eduardo L. OrtizMar 20, 2012
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A Historical Study on Development of Optometry
Development of optometry in western countries was studied on a viewpoint of the history of science. It was revealed that optometry had been formed on the basis of optics, a branch of physics, to…
Dal-Young KimMar 17, 2012
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From Vector Meson Dominance to Quark-Hadron Duality
A short review of the many contributions to hadron physics made by Mario Greco is presented. The review roughly covers his production between 1971 and 1974, just before the advent of QCD, when…
Albert BramonMar 15, 2012
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Thoughts about a conceptual framework for relativistic gravity
I consider the isolation of general relativity research from the rest of theoretical physics during the 1930s-1950s, and the subsequent reinvigoration of the field. I suggest that the main reason for…
Bernard F. SchutzMar 14, 2012
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Newton vs. Leibniz: Intransparency vs. Inconsistency
We investigate the structure common to causal theories that attempt to explain a (part of) the world. Causality implies conservation of identity, itself a far from simple notion. It imposes strong…
Karin VerelstMar 10, 2012
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