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History and Philosophy of Physics papers — page 53

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John Couch Adams: mathematical astronomer, college friend of George Gabriel Stokes and promotor of women in astronomy
John Couch Adams predicted the location of Neptune in the sky, calculated the expectation of the change in the mean motion of the Moon due to the Earth's pull, and determined the origin and the orbit…
Davor KrajnovićApr 8, 2020
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In Praise of Clausius Entropy: Reassessing the Foundations of Boltzmannian Statistical Mechanics
I will argue, pace a great many of my contemporaries, that there's something right about Boltzmann's attempt to ground the second law of thermodynamics in a suitably amended deterministic…
Christopher Gregory WeaverApr 7, 2020
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An Unpublished Manuscript of John von Neumann on Shock Waves in Boostered Detonations
We report on an unpublished and previously unknown manuscript of John von Neumann and contextualize it within the development of the theory of shock waves and detonations during the nineteenth and…
Molly Riley Knoedler, Julianna C. Costas, Caroline Mary Hogan et al.Apr 7, 2020
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Theoretical Physics and Indian Philosophy: Conceptual Coherence
The paper addresses the phenomenon of cross-cultural resonance, which arises when ideas coming from different cultures and view systems show mutual correlation, or coherence. We particularly dwell on…
Anna Sidorova-BiryukovaApr 5, 2020
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The October 10, 1912 solar eclipse expeditions and the first attempt to measure light-bending by the Sun
In 1911 Einstein proposed that light-bending by the Sun's gravitational field could be measured during a total solar eclipse. The first opportunity in which this measurement would be tried, was…
Luís C. B. CrispinoApr 4, 2020
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The Five Problems of Irreversibility
Thermodynamics has a clear arrow of time, characterized by the irreversible approach to equilibrium. This stands in contrast to the laws of microscopic theories, which are invariant under…
Michael te VrugtApr 2, 2020
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Evolution and Transformation of Scientific Knowledge over the Sphaera Corpus: A Network Study
We investigated the evolution and transformation of scientific knowledge in the early modern period, analyzing more than 350 different editions of textbooks used for teaching astronomy in European…
Maryam Zamani, Alejandro Tejedor, Malte Vogl et al.Apr 1, 2020
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Enrico Fermi in Argentina and his Lectures in Buenos Aires, Cordoba and La Plata
In 1934 Enrico Fermi accepted an invitation to deliver lectures in Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay. He arrived in Buenos Aires on July 30, lectured in Buenos Aires, Cordoba, La Plata and Montevideo,…
Alessandro De Angelis, Jose M. KennyMar 30, 2020
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Different minds in the jigsaw puzzle of H-bomb story
The Super-bomb issue contained two problems: feasibility of physical engineering and political need to get H-bomb ASAP. And there were two radically different assessments of these problems by…
Gennady GorelikMar 28, 2020
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Dirac and the Path Integral
Through a very careful analysis of Dirac's 1932 paper on the Lagrangian in Quantum Mechanics as well as the second and third editions of his classic book The Principles of Quantum Mechanics, I…
N. D. Hari DassMar 28, 2020
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Mikhail Lomonosov. Panegyric to the Sovereign Emperor Peter the Great (1755). Panegyric to Empress Elizabeth (1749). English translations with footnotes and commentaries by V.Shiltsev
One of Russia most prominent Enlightenment figures, Mikhail Lomonosov (1711-1765) was a polymath, scientist and writer, who made important contributions to physics, chemistry, astronomy, literature…
Mikhail Lomonosov, Vladimir ShiltsevMar 28, 2020
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Urban Planning in the First Unfortified Spanish Colonial Town: The orientation of the historic churches of San Cristobal de La Laguna
The city of San Cristobal de La Laguna in the Canary Island of Tenerife (Spain) has an exceptional value due to the original conception of its plan. It is an urban system in a grid, outlined by…
Alejandro Gangui, Juan Antonio BelmonteMar 27, 2020
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Spacetime functionalism from a realist perspective
In prior work, we have argued that spacetime functionalism provides tools for clarifying the conceptual difficulties specifically linked to the emergence of spacetime in certain approaches to quantum…
Vincent Lam, Christian WuthrichMar 23, 2020
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The determination of stellar temperatures from Baron B. Hark\'anyi to the Gaia mission
The first determination of the surface temperature of stars other than the Sun is due to the Hungarian astrophysicist B\'ela Hark\'anyi. Prompted by the recent unprecedented increase in the…
Kristof PetrovayMar 18, 2020
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Indeterminism, causality and information: Has physics ever been deterministic?
A tradition handed down among physicists maintains that classical physics is a perfectly deterministic theory capable of predicting the future with absolute certainty, independently of any…
Flavio Del SantoMar 16, 2020
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Memory and entropy
I study the physical nature of traces (or memories). Surprisingly, (i) systems separation with (ii) temperature differences and (iii) long thermalization times, are sufficient conditions to produce…
Carlo RovelliMar 14, 2020
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Is Chemistry Really Founded in Quantum Mechanics?
The relationship between the chemical picture of an isolated molecule and that arising from the eiegenfunctions of the Schrodinger Coulomb Hamiltonian ror the isolated molecule are examined and…
Brian Sutcliffe, R. Guy WoolleyMar 14, 2020
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Heisenberg's Equality of Inequivalents Problem
In his book `Physics and Philosophy', Heisenberg suggested that the quantum world is one of ``potentialities or possibilities'' and that the classical realm is one of ``things or facts''. After…
Armin Nikkhah ShiraziMar 14, 2020
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Extreme Space Weather Events Recorded in History
This section shows an overview of a recent development of the studies on great space weather events in history. Its discussion starts from the Carrington event and compare its intensity with the…
Hisashi Hayakawa, Yusuke EbiharaMar 11, 2020
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Quantization Conditions, 1900-1927
We trace the evolution of quantization conditions from Planck's introduction of a new fundamental constant (h) in his treatment of blackbody radiation in 1900 to Heisenberg's interpretation of the…
Anthony Duncan, Michel JanssenMar 10, 2020
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Provenance of the Cross Sign of 806 in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle: A possible Lunar Halo over Continental Europe?
While graphical records of astronomical/meteorological events before telescopic observations are of particular interest, they have frequently undergone multiple copying and may have been modified…
Yuta Uchikawa, Les Cowley, Hisashi Hayakawa et al.Mar 9, 2020
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On thought experiments: Mach and Einstein (Part I)
This paper will attempt to show that the Doppler principle was of major relevance to Einstein for the genesis of the special theory of relativity.
Eren SimsekMar 9, 2020
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The problem of scientific greatness and the role of ordinary scientists
Textbooks in physics use science history to humanize the subject and motivate students for learning, but they deal exclusively with the heroes of the field and ignore the vast majority of scientists…
Nathan HagenMar 9, 2020
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Archaeoastronomical study of the historic churches of La Gomera
In this paper we discuss the importance of studying the orientation of ancient Christian churches, as a complement to the historical and cultural research of the temples. We present preliminary…
Adrian Di Paolo, Alejandro GanguiMar 2, 2020
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The Local versus the Global in the History of Relativity: The Case of Belgium
This article contributes to a global history of relativity, by exploring how Einstein's theory was appropriated in Belgium. This may sound as a contradiction in terms, yet the early-twentieth-century…
Sjang L. ten HagenFeb 28, 2020
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