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History and Philosophy of Physics papers — page 41

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Which is the ontology of Dark Matter and Dark Energy?
We adopt in this work the idea that the building blocks of the visible Universe belong to a class of the irreducible representations of the Poincare group of transformations (the "things") endowed…
J. E. HorvathJul 20, 2021
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The Schr\"odinger Cat: Physics, Myth, and Philosophy
The most discussed of ``live'' metaphors in physical sciences is that of the Schr\"odinger cat. Introduced in the early, but mature days of the new quantum theory, in 1935, the parable of the cat has…
C. S. UnnikrishnanJul 20, 2021
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Time and its arrow: an empiricist's perspective
The nature of time has beguiled philosophers for nearly three millennia. There are myriad types of time including cosmological time, biological time, psychological time, physical time, historical…
Stephen BoughnJul 16, 2021
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Degrees of riskiness, falsifiability, and truthlikeness. A neo-Popperian account applicable to probabilistic theories
In this paper, we take a fresh look at three Popperian concepts: riskiness, falsifiability, and truthlikeness (or verisimilitude) of scientific hypotheses or theories. First, we make explicit the…
Leander Vignero, Sylvia WenmackersJul 8, 2021
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European Longitude Prizes. IV. Thomas Axe's Impossible Terms
Although governments across Europe had realised the need to incentivise the development of practically viable longitude solutions as early as the late-sixteenth century, the English government was…
Richard de GrijsJul 8, 2021
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European Longitude Prizes. III. The Unsolved Mystery of an Alleged Venetian Longitude Prize
Despite frequent references in modern reviews to a seventeenth-century Venetian longitude prize, only a single, circumstantial reference to the alleged prize is known from contemporary sources.…
Richard de GrijsJul 8, 2021
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From England to Italy: the intriguing story of Poli's engine for the King of Naples
An interesting, yet unknown, episode concerning the effective permeation of the scientific revolution in the XVIII century Kingdom of Naples (and, more generally, Italy) is recounted. The quite…
Salvatore EspositoJul 7, 2021
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Understanding Physics: 'What?', 'Why?', and 'How?'
I want to combine two hitherto largely independent research projects, scientific understanding and mechanistic explanations. Understanding is not only achieved by answering why-questions, that is, by…
Mario HubertJul 6, 2021
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Kelvin's clouds
In 1900 Lord Kelvin identified two problems for 19th century physics, two "clouds" as he puts it: the relative motion of the ether with respect to massive objects, and Maxwell-Boltzmann's theorem on…
Oliver PassonJun 30, 2021
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Archaeoastronomical study of Christian churches in Fuerteventura
We present an archaeoastronomical study of the orientations of the colonial Christian churches on the island of Fuerteventura, in the Canary Islands, Spain, mostly built from the period of the Norman…
Maria Florencia Muratore, Alejandro GanguiJun 25, 2021
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Humeanism in Light of Quantum Gravity
Quantum Theory and Humeanism have long been thought to be incompatible due to the irreducibility of the correlations involved in entangled states. In this paper, we reconstruct the tension between…
Enrico Cinti, Marco SanchioniJun 24, 2021
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Neutrino: chronicles of an aloof protagonist
We give a brief account of the history of neutrino, and how that most aloof of all particles has shaped our search for a theory of fundamental interactions ever since it was theoretically proposed.…
Alejandra Melfo, Goran SenjanovicJun 24, 2021
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Observables and Hamilton-Jacobi approaches to general relativity. I. The Earlier History
The main focus is on the Hamilton-Jacobi techniques in classical general relativity that were pursued by Peter Bergmann and Arthur Komar in the 1960's and 1970's. They placed special emphasis on the…
Donald SalisburyJun 22, 2021
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In Memoriam: Joshua N. Goldberg
This is a short memoriam celebrating the life and work of the general relativist Joshua N. Goldberg, who passed away in October, 2020.
Donald SalisburyJun 20, 2021
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Are We Entering a Paradigm Shift for Dark Matter?
While the LCDM framework has been incredibly successful for modern cosmology, it requires the admission of two mysterious substances as a part of the paradigm, dark energy and dark matter. Although…
James SchombertJun 18, 2021
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The Noonday Argument: Fine-Graining, Indexicals, and the Nature of Copernican Reasoning
Typicality arguments attempt to use the Copernican Principle to draw conclusions about the cosmos and presently unknown conscious beings within it, including extraterrestrial intelligences (ETI). The…
Brian C. LackiJun 14, 2021
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Modern light on ancient feud: Robert Hooke and Newton's graphical method
The feud between Robert Hooke and Isaac Newton has remained ongoing even after 300 years, over whether Newton should have acknowledged Hooke's influence on his graphical method of constructing planet…
Siu A. ChinJun 13, 2021
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Quantum Information and the Mind-Body Problem
The mind-body problem is reviewed in the context of a non-technical account of quantum information theory. The importance of clearly defining: `what is physical?' is highlighted, since only then can…
Martin Paul VaughanJun 6, 2021
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String theory, Einstein, and the identity of physics: Theory assessment in absence of the empirical
String theorists are certain that they are practicing physicists. Yet, some of their recent critics deny this. This paper argues that this conflict is really about who holds authority in making…
Jeroen van DongenMay 29, 2021
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An English translation of L. Euler's "Calculations on aerostatic balloons made by the late Mr. Leonhard Euler, as they were found on his blackboard, after his death on 7 September 1783"
This is an English translation of E579 in which the introductory remarks are in French, while Euler's original text is in Latin. By considering the balance of forces acting on a raising balloon on an…
Sylvio R BistafaMay 28, 2021
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On the Unconditional Validity of J. von Neumann's Proof of the Impossibility of Hidden Variables in Quantum Mechanics
The impossibility of theories with hidden variables as an alternative and replacement for quantum mechanics was discussed by J. von Neumann in 1932. His proof was criticized as being logically…
C. S. UnnikrishnanMay 27, 2021
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E. Schr\"odinger's 1931 paper "On the Reversal of the Laws of Nature" ["\"Uber die Umkehrung der Naturgesetze",Sitzungsberichte der preussischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, physikalische mathematische Klasse, 8 N9 144-153]
We present an English translation of Erwin Schr\"odinger's paper on "On the Reversal of the Laws of Nature". In this paper Schr\"odinger analyses the idea of time reversal of a diffusion process.…
Raphaël Chetrite, Paolo Muratore-Ginanneschi, Kay SchwiegerMay 26, 2021
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Yet another approach to the inverse square law and to the circular character of the hodograph of Kepler orbits
The law of centripetal force governing the motion of celestial bodies in eccentric conic sections, has been established and thoroughly investigated by Sir Isaac Newton in his Principia Mathematica.…
Adel AlamehMay 25, 2021
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Cosmic Meteorology
Mike Lockwood and Mathew Owens discuss how eclipse observations are aiding the development of a climatology of near-Earth space
Mike Lockwood, Mat OwensMay 25, 2021
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The Gauge Argument: A Noether Reason
Why is gauge symmetry so important in modern physics, given that one must eliminate it when interpreting what the theory represents? In this paper we discuss the sense in which gauge symmetry can be…
Bryan W. Roberts, Henrique Gomes, Jeremy ButterfieldMay 24, 2021
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