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History and Philosophy of Physics papers — page 132

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Between Pacifism and Nuclear Energy (1930-1955)
The atomic bomb American program known as Manhattan Project has been studied in detail. Historians argue that the beginning of this program is rooted in the letter Einstein sent to American President…
Diego Hurtado de MendozaJun 7, 2007
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Boltzmann and the art of flying
One of the less known facets of Ludwig Boltzmann was that of an advocate of Aviation, one of the most challenging technological problems of his times. Boltzmann followed closely the studies of…
Silvio R. DahmenMay 31, 2007
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Coulomb oscillations as a remedy for the helium atom
The largest failure of the old, Bohr-Sommerfeld quantum theory was with the helium atom. It brought about the theory's demise. I show that this failure does not originate, as commonly believed,…
Manfred BucherMay 30, 2007
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Einstein against quantum mechanics: randomness, ignorance and our ignorance about randomness
Albert Einstein made fundamental contributions to the development of quantum mechanics. However, he was never satisfied with the quantum worldview. In fact, during most of his life he attempted to…
Juan Pablo PazMay 30, 2007
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Philosophy and Relativity
With his General Theory of Relativity, Albert Einstein produced a revolution in our conception of reality and of the knowledge we can obtain from it. This revolution can be viewed from philosophy as…
Olimpia LombardiMay 30, 2007
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From Newton to Einstein: the birth of Special Relativity
Physics was in crisis at the beginning of the twentieth century because the newborn Maxwell's electromagnetism defied mechanistic preconceptions. Albert Einstein understood that the solution to…
Rafael FerraroMay 30, 2007
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Einstein and early 20th Century avant-garde art: points of contact?
Art history linked some early 20th Century avant-garde visual art movements to contemporary systems of ideas in mathematics and theoretical physics. One of the proposed connections is the one that…
José X. MartiniMay 30, 2007
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El universo de Einstein: 1905 - annus mirabilis - 2005
Year 2005 was the World Year of Physics, and it was commemorated worldwide as the 100th anniversary of Albert Einstein's legendary works in which the foundations of at least three areas of modern…
Alejandro GanguiMay 29, 2007
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Complementarity in the Bohr-Einstein Photon Box
The photon box thought experiment can be considered a forerunner of the EPR-experiment: by performing suitable measurements on the box it is possible to ``prepare'' the photon, long after it…
Dennis Dieks, Sander LamMay 18, 2007
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Enrico Fermi's view of identical particles
In this paper I discuss Enrico Fermi's view of identical particles, taking a lecture that he gave in 1933 as a starting point. Fermi used his lecture as a basis for a paper that was published in…
Edoardo MilottiMay 9, 2007
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Indian Cosmological Ideas
This paper, third in the series on Indian tradition of physics, describes conceptions of the cosmos with ideas that are clearly spelt out in texts such as Yoga Vasishtha.In particular, the conception…
R. H. NarayanMay 9, 2007
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Clarifying Einstein's First Derivation for Mass-Energy Equivalence and Consequently Making Ives's Criticism a Void
We study physical situation considered by Einstein (Ann. Physik, 17, 1905) for his first derivation of mass-energy equivalence. Einstein introduced a constant C in his derivation and reasoning…
R. V. R. PandyaMay 6, 2007
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Dick Dalitz: Examples of His Contributions to Particle Physics
Dick Dalitz produced lasting contributions to particle physics for 50 years. Along with Dalitz pairs, Dalitz plots and CDD poles, he did major work in parity violation, hyperon resonance…
Gary R. GoldsteinApr 30, 2007
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Nova Geminorum 1912 and the Origin of the Idea of Gravitational Lensing
Einstein's early calculations of gravitational lensing, contained in a scratch notebook and dated to the spring of 1912, are reexamined. A hitherto unknown letter by Einstein suggests that he…
Tilman SauerApr 7, 2007
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The Einstein-Varicak Correspondence on Relativistic Rigid Rotation
The historical significance of the problem of relativistic rigid rotation is reviewed in light of recently published correspondence between Einstein and the mathematician Vladimir Varicak from the…
Tilman SauerApr 7, 2007
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Plasma: the genesis of the word
The historical roots of the word plasma are recalled. It is suggested that possibly at the beginning of the researches in low-pressure gas discharges the driving motivation was related to the psychic…
Mario J. PinheiroMar 28, 2007
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Irving Kaplansky and Supersymmetry
Remarks at the Irving Kaplansky Memorial about a collaboration during the early period of the renewal of contacts between mathematicians and theoretical physicists.
Peter G. O. FreundMar 4, 2007
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Giulio Racah and Theoretical Physics in Jerusalem
Giulio Racah's name is known world wide in physics due to the mathematical methods he developed that are based on tensor operators and continuous groups. These methods revolutionized…
Nissan ZeldesMar 3, 2007
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Majorana and the quasi-stationary states in Nuclear Physics
A complete theoretical model describing artificial disintegration of nuclei by bombardment with alpha-particles, developed by Majorana as early as in 1930, is discussed in detail alongside the basic…
E. Di Grezia, S. EspositoFeb 21, 2007
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Probability as a physical motive
Recent theoretical progress in nonequilibrium thermodynamics, linking the physical principle of Maximum Entropy Production ("MEP") to the information-theoretical "MaxEnt" principle of…
Peter MartinFeb 15, 2007
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Hempel's dilemma and the physics of computation
Carl Gustav Hempel (1905-1997) formulated the dilemma that carries his name in an attempt to determine the boundaries of physics. Where does physics go over into metaphysics? The purpose of this…
C. W. J. BeenakkerFeb 8, 2007
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The Theory Of Matter in Indian Physics
This paper is the second in series of the Indian physics of the Nyaya-Vaisheshika school. It is significant that the school defines matter not in terms of something gross that is anchored to the…
R. H. NarayanFeb 1, 2007
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E.C.G. Stueckelberg: a forerunner of modern physics
The pioneering work of E.C.G. Stueckelberg is briefly analyzed: the formalism of the Stueckelberg field, able to describe a massive vector field, is reviewed, and some applications are presented. In…
Francesco Cianfrani, Orchidea Maria LecianJan 30, 2007
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Theory assessment and reality in Boltzmann's epistemological thinking
This paper discusses how theories can be assessed within the epistemological viewpoint advanced by the Austrian physicist Ludwig E. Boltzmann. It builds upon, and further develops, the perspective of…
Marcelo Byrro Ribeiro, Antonio Augusto Passos VideiraJan 27, 2007
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Rosenfeld, Bergmann, Dirac and the Invention of Constrained Hamiltonian Dynamics
In a paper appearing in Annalen der Physik in 1930 Leon Rosenfeld invented the first procedure for producing Hamiltonian constraints. He displayed and correctly distinguished the vanishing…
D. C. SalisburyJan 25, 2007
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