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History and Philosophy of Physics papers — page 25

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A mathematical construction of the 260 day mesoamerican calendar based on archaeoastronomical alignments
Ancient mesoamerican cultures built a short ritual 260 day calendar and used it for daily routinary life. Using simple arithmetic calculations it is first shown that by forcing the introduction of…
Sergio MendozaSep 1, 2023
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My friend Alex M\"uller
Alex, the main discoverer of high Tc superconductivity, was also a dear friend. Here I offer a few frank anecdotes, possibly inaccurate in some details but heartfelt and accurate in the substance, as…
Erio TosattiAug 31, 2023
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Keith Brueckner (1924-2014). A biographical memoir
Keith Brueckner was a theoretical physicist of considerable technical power who came of age as the mysteries of the atomic nucleus were coming into focus. His fundamental contributions to the…
William BialekAug 31, 2023
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Ruliology: Linking Computation, Observers and Physical Law
Stephen Wolfram has recently outlined an unorthodox, multicomputational approach to fundamental theory, encompassing not only physics but also mathematics in a structure he calls The Ruliad,…
Dean Rickles, Hatem Elshatlawy, Xerxes D. ArsiwallaAug 30, 2023
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The elimination of metaphysics through the epistemological analysis: lessons (un)learned from metaphysical underdetermination
This chapter argues that the general philosophy of science should learn metaphilosophical lessons from the case of metaphysical underdetermination, as it occurs in non-relativistic quantum mechanics.…
Raoni Arroyo, Jonas R. B. Arenhart, Décio KrauseAug 30, 2023
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From Humean Laws to a Neo-Kantian Spacetime: A Dynamics-First View of Topology
Do the spacetime manifolds which feature in our best scientific theories reflect anything metaphysically weighty in the world (e.g., any fundamental substances or relations)? Should we extend our…
Daniel GrimmerAug 27, 2023
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A compromised constitution of intersubjectivity from the perspective of a Weylian schema
Weyl proposed a schema for symbolic construction of scientific representation starting from subjective immediate experience, and moving toward the objective ordered manifolds of possibilities due to…
Dong LuoAug 26, 2023
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Understanding and Interpretations of Quantum Mechanics
Taking Heisenberg's and Schrodinger's theories of quantum mechanics as his case study, De Regt's contextual theory of understanding argues that recognizing qualitatively characteristic consequences…
Dong LuoAug 25, 2023
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On the Boundary of the Cosmos
Intuitively, the totality of physical reality -- the Cosmos -- has a beginning only if (i) all parts of the Cosmos agree on the direction of time (the Direction Condition) and (ii) there is a…
Daniel LinfordAug 24, 2023
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Between understanding and control: Science as a cultural product
Since the early days of humankind, people have been asking questions about Nature of two kinds: why did that happen? And how can that be used? In a broad sense, science was born that day. We show…
Flavio Del SantoAug 23, 2023
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Uniform probability in cosmology
Problems with uniform probabilities on an infinite support show up in contemporary cosmology. This paper focuses on the context of inflation theory, where it complicates the assignment of a…
Sylvia WenmackersAug 23, 2023
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Margherita Hack's Astrophysics at the Asiago Astrophysical Observatory
Margherita Hack observed with the Galileo telescope at the Asiago Astrophysical Observatory from September 1951 to March 1954. Using the spectroscopic facilities of the observatory, Margherita…
G. Umbriaco, A. Bianchini, A. Pizzella et al.Aug 22, 2023
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Astronomy of the Earth-Moon system and the Eschatological Expectations of the Christian Historians of the 5th century CE
This is a historian's view of how modern astronomy data can be used to discuss the shifting historical worldview of Late Antiquity. In this article an attemp is made to construct an approximate model…
D. N. StarostinAug 19, 2023
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The philosophy of causal set theory
This article presents the most interesting philosophical issues as they arise in causal set theory. The first concerns the apparent disappearance of spacetime at the fundamental level. It shows how…
Christian WüthrichAug 9, 2023
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Bertlmann's socks from a Viennese perspective
Quantum mechanics is a theory that is as effective as it is counterintuitive. While quantum practices operate impeccably, they compel us to embrace enigmatic phenomena like the collapse of the state…
Marcello PolettiAug 7, 2023
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Enrico Fermi: a forgotten article written for Italian teachers
In 1929, Enrico Fermi wrote "Problemi attuali della fisica" ("Contemporary Problems of Physics"), a short article in Italian published in the magazine "Annali dell'istruzione media". The magazine was…
Emanuele Goldoni, Ledo StefaniniAug 6, 2023
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Superluminal Transformations in Spacetimes of Definite Metric
This paper reviews and extends an approach to superluminal kinematics set forth by R. Sutherland and J. Shepanski in 1986. This theory is characterized by a spacetime with positive definite metric, a…
Kent A. PeacockAug 4, 2023
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The Ontology of Compositeness Within Quantum Field Theory
In this work, we attempt to define a notion of compositeness compatible with Quantum Field Theory. Considering the analytic properties of the S-matrix, we conclude that there is no satisfactory…
Toby PeterkenJul 31, 2023
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A minimalist account of agency in physics
We adopt a top-down approach to agency aimed at developing a minimalist, scalable and naturalized account of it. After providing a general definition, we explore some possible extensions and…
Ali Barzegar, Emilia Margoni, Daniele OritiJul 29, 2023
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How Bohr's Copenhagen interpretation is realist and solves the measurement problem
The field of interpretation of quantum mechanics emerged in an attempt to solve the measurement problem. This turned on the perception that Niels Bohr avoided addressing the measurement problem by…
Govind Krishnan.Jul 29, 2023
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Black holes were born
In 1939 Albert Einstein wrote a technical article that argued against the possibility that a star can be contracted to a single point: particles making up the star would end up rotating at velocities…
Jeroen van DongenJul 26, 2023
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The roads to non-individuals (and how not to read their maps)
Ever since its beginnings, standard quantum mechanics has been associated with a metaphysical view according to which the theory deals with non-individual objects, i.e., objects deprived of…
Jonas R. B. Arenhart, Raoni W. ArroyoJul 22, 2023
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The laws of nature and the problems of modern cosmology
The notion that nature is subject to laws is exciting from many different viewpoints. This paper is based on the context of modern cosmology and presents a more philosophical discussion. It will list…
Yves Gaspar, Pawel TamborJul 22, 2023
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Geometrogenesis in GFT: An Analysis
In this paper I introduce the idea of geometrogenesis as suggested in the group field theory literature and I offer a criticism of it. Geometrogenesis in the context of GFT is the idea that what we…
Álvaro Mozota FraucaJul 21, 2023
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On "agential realism" and ontology of quantum mechanics
K. Barad proposes "agential realism" as a unified approach to natural and social phenomena. The position is inspired by quantum mechanics and in particular the phenomenon of quantum entanglement.…
Francois-Igor PrisJul 21, 2023
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