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History and Philosophy of Physics papers — page 119

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On the Lorentzian route to Relativity
We discuss pedagogical problems associated with the conventional approach in teaching relativity and the potential value of "Lorentzian route to relativity" for addressing these pedagogical…
Atilla Gürel, Zeynep GürelJul 24, 2011
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Gauge symmetry breaking in gauge theories---In search of clarification
The paper investigates the spontaneous breaking of gauge symmetries in gauge theories from a philosophical angle, taking into account the fact that the notion of a spontaneously broken local gauge…
Simon FriederichJul 23, 2011
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Quantum magic: A skeptical perspective
Quantum mechanics (QM) has attracted a considerable amount of mysticism, in public opinion and even among academic researches, due to some of its conceptually puzzling features, such as the…
Giorgio TorrieriJul 19, 2011
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Elementary Considerations on the Interpretation of the Foundations of Quantum Mechanics
This paper appeared in a collection of papers titled "Scientific Papers Presented to Max Born on his retirement from the Tait Chair of Natural Philosophy in the University of Edinburgh",…
Albert EinsteinJul 19, 2011
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S. Chandrasekhar: White Dwarfs, H- ion,.., Black holes, Gravitational waves
This is a concise review, addressed to undergraduate students, of S. Chandrasekhar's oeuvre in astrophysics, ranging from his early studies on white dwarfs using relativistic quantum statistics…
Patrick Das GuptaJul 18, 2011
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Who discovered the expanding universe?
Who discovered the expanding universe? Was it Hubble, or Lemaître, or was it just the end result of a long series of investigations? In this article we summarise the main steps and contributions that…
Harry Nussbaumer, Lydia BieriJul 12, 2011
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Horizon synthesis for archaeo-astronomical purposes
In this paper I describe a simple numerical procedure to compute synthetic horizon altitude profiles for any given site. The method makes use of a simplified model of local Earth's curvature, and…
Ferdinando PatatJul 11, 2011
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Did Edwin Hubble plagiarize?
Recently Block published an astro-phhttp://arxiv.org/abs/1106.3928 (2011). insinuating that Lemaitre discovery paper of the Expanding Universe was censored prior to its translation into English and…
Giora ShavivJul 3, 2011
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A new answer to the Needham Question, or Who, how and why did invent the modern physics?
The cultural infrastructure that let Galileo invent the modern physics is discussed. The key new element of modern physics was firm belief in its fundamental structure, which could be expressed in…
Gennady GorelikJun 30, 2011
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Georges Lemaitre and Stiglers Law of Eponymy
One of the greatest discoveries of modern times is that of the expanding Universe, almost invariably attributed to Hubble (1929). What is not widely known is that the original treatise by Lemaitre…
David L. BlockJun 20, 2011
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On Kinds of Indiscernibility in Logic and Metaphysics
Using the Hilbert-Bernays account as a spring-board, we first define four ways in which two objects can be discerned from one another, using the non-logical vocabulary of the language concerned.…
Adam Caulton, Jeremy ButterfieldJun 20, 2011
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Around Kepler's "Dream"
Johann Kepler (1571-1630) is sometimes considered as a precursor of science-fiction novels with the writing of "Somnium, sive opus posthumum of astronomia lunaris". In this work published…
Jean-Pierre LuminetJun 18, 2011
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Big Science and the Large Hadron Collider
The Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the particle accelerator operating at CERN, is probably the most complex and ambitious scientific project ever accomplished by humanity. The sheer size of the…
Gian Francesco GiudiceJun 13, 2011
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Incontri celesti, vita del padre Clavio in cinque atti
The year 2012 will be the fourth centennial year of the Jesuit Christopher Clavius (1535-1612), known as the Euclid of XVI century and the collaborator of the Pope Gregory XIII for the calendar…
Costantino SigismondiJun 13, 2011
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L'Epistolario di Gerberto, papa astronomo
A new Italian edition of the Letters of Gerbert, the astronomer, scientist and philosopher who become pope Silvester II, with their papal privileges has been published in the occasion of the…
Costantino SigismondiJun 13, 2011
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On (Some) Explanations in Physics
I offer one possible explanation of why inertial and gravitational mass are equal in Newtonian gravitation. I then argue that this is an example of a kind of explanation that is not captured by…
James Owen WeatherallJun 12, 2011
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A Brief Remark on Energy Conditions and the Geroch-Jang Theorem
The status of the geodesic principle in General Relativity has been a topic of some interest in the recent literature on the foundations of spacetime theories. Part of this discussion has focused on…
James Owen WeatherallJun 12, 2011
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On the Status of the Geodesic Principle in Newtonian and Relativistic Physics
A theorem due to Bob Geroch and Pong Soo Jang ["Motion of a Body in General Relativity." Journal of Mathematical Physics 16(1), (1975)] provides a sense in which the geodesic principle has…
James Owen WeatherallJun 12, 2011
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When effective theories predict: the inevitability of Mercury's anomalous perihelion precession
If the concepts underlying Effective Theory were appreciated from the earliest days of Newtonian gravity, Le Verrier's announcement in 1845 of the anomalous perihelion precession of Mercury would…
James D. WellsJun 8, 2011
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Walther Bothe and Bruno Rossi: the birth and development of coincidence methods in cosmic-ray physics
Theoretical and experimental developments in the 1920s that accompanied the birth of coincidence methods, as well as later crucial applications during the 1930s and 1940s are presented. In 1924…
Luisa BonolisJun 7, 2011
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Modelling Complexity: the case of Climate Science
We briefly review some of the scientific challenges and epistemological issues related to climate science. We discuss the formulation and testing of theories and numerical models, which, given the…
Valerio LucariniJun 7, 2011
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The Curious Case of Lemaitre's Equation No. 24
The 1927 discovery of the expansion of the Universe by Lemaitre was published in French in a low-impact journal. In the 1931 high-impact English translation of this article a critical equation was…
Sidney van den BerghJun 6, 2011
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In search of continuity: thoughts of an epistemic empiricist
Is the universe digital or analog? In this essay I argue that both classical and quantum physics include limits that prevent us from definitively answering that question. That quantum physics does so…
Ian T. DurhamJun 6, 2011
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Einstein's `Zürich Notebook' and his Journey to General Relativity
On the basis of his `Zürich Notebook' I shall describe a particularly fruitful phase in Einstein's struggle on the way to general relativity. These research notes are an extremely…
Norbert StraumannJun 5, 2011
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Emergence, Reduction and Supervenience: a Varied Landscape
This is one of two papers about emergence, reduction and supervenience. It expounds these notions and analyses the general relations between them. The companion paper analyses the situation in…
Jeremy ButterfieldJun 3, 2011
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