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History and Philosophy of Physics papers — page 56

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A New Task for the Philosophy of Science
This paper argues that philosophers of science have before them an important new task that they urgently need to take up. It is to convince the scientific community to adopt and implement a new…
Nicholas MaxwellDec 9, 2019
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Searching for a response: the intriguing mystery of Feynman's theoretical reference amplifier
We analyze Feynman's work on the response of an amplifier performed at Los Alamos and described in a technical report of 1946, as well as lectured on at the Cornell University in 1946-47 during his…
Vincenzo d'Alessandro, Santolo Daliento, Marco Di Mauro et al.Dec 6, 2019
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Emmy Noether on Energy Conservation in General Relativity
During the First World War, the status of energy conservation in general relativity was one of the most hotly debated questions surrounding Einstein's new theory of gravitation. His approach to this…
David E. RoweDec 4, 2019
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From Euclid to BGL
The emergence of the new, non-Euclidean geometry of Bolyai, Gauss, and Lobachevskii (BGL) and its impact on modern sciences is the subject of a series of biennial conferences. Below, I briefly review…
László JenkovszkyDec 3, 2019
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Cold numbers: Superconducting supercomputers and presumptive anomaly
In February 2014 Time magazine announced to the world that the first quantum computer had been put in use. One key component of this computer is the Josephson-junction, a superconducting device,…
N. De Liso, G. Filatrella, D. Gagliardi et al.Dec 3, 2019
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A Changing Dichotomy: The Conception of the "Macroscopic" and "Microscopic" Worlds in the History of Physics
This short essay traces the conceptual history of micro- and macroscopicity in the context of physical science. By focusing on three distinct episodes spanning five centuries, we show the scientific…
Zhixin WangDec 2, 2019
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Inner privacy of conscious experiences and quantum information
The human mind is constituted by inner, subjective, private, first-person conscious experiences that cannot be measured with physical devices or observed from an external, objective, public,…
Danko D. GeorgievNov 26, 2019
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A Spherical Version of Feynman's Static Field Momentum Example
The Feynman demonstration that electromagnetic field momentum is real-even for static fields-can be made more pedagogically useful by simplifying its geometry. Instead of Feynman's disk with charged…
Oliver Davis JohnsNov 14, 2019
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Effective field theories as a novel probe of fine-tuning of cosmic inflation
The leading account of several salient observable features of our universe today is provided by the theory of cosmic inflation. But an important and thus far intractable question is whether inflation…
Feraz AzharNov 12, 2019
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Observability, Unobservability and the Copenhagen Interpretation in Dirac's Methodology of Physics
Paul A. M. Dirac has been undoubtedly one of the central figures of the last century physics, contributing in several and remarkable ways to the development of Quantum Mechanics (QM); he was also at…
Andrea Oldofredi, Michael EsfeldNov 6, 2019
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Mathematics underfoot: The formulas that came to Wuerzburg from New Haven
Two formulas are set in floor-tiles in the foyer of the Wuerzburg building that houses the laboratory in which Wilhelm Roentgen discovered X-rays in 1895. But what do they mean, and what have they…
Anthony John BrackenNov 6, 2019
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Einstein and Eddington and the consequences of general relativity: Black holes and gravitational waves
For the celebrations of the 100 years of the observations undertaken by Eddington at the island of Principe and collaborators at Sobral during a total solar eclipse in May 29, 1919, which have…
José P. S. Lemos, Carlos A. R. Herdeiro, Vitor CardosoNov 5, 2019
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Gauging the spacetime metric -- looking back and forth a century later
H. Weyl's proposal of 1918 for generalizing Riemannian geometry by local scale gauge (later called Weyl geometry) was motivated by mathematical, philosophical and physical considerations. It…
Erhard ScholzNov 5, 2019
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Maxwell's derivation of the Lorentz force from Faraday's law
In a brief but brilliant derivation that can be found in Maxwell's Treatise and traced back to his 1861 and 1865 papers, he derives the force on a moving electric charge subject to electromagnetic…
Arthur D. YaghjianNov 3, 2019
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On the Topic of Emergence from an Effective Field Theory Perspective
Effective Field Theories have been used successfully to provide a "bottom-up" description of phenomena whose intrinsic degrees of freedom behave at length scales far different from their effective…
Thomas Luu, Ulf-G. MeißnerOct 30, 2019
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Finely tuned models sacrifice explanatory depth
It is commonly argued that an undesirable feature of a theoretical or phenomenological model is that salient observables are sensitive to values of parameters in the model. But in what sense is it…
Feraz Azhar, Abraham LoebOct 30, 2019
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George Sudarshan and Quantum Dynamics
These are my recollections of working with George Sudarshan from 2002 to 2008 when I was a PhD student in his group. During these years I learnt a lot of physics and also witness to some remarkable…
Kavan ModiOct 29, 2019
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On the Limits of Experimental Knowledge
To demarcate the limits of experimental knowledge we probe the limits of what might be called an experiment. By appeal to examples of scientific practice from astrophysics and analogue gravity, we…
Peter W. Evans, Karim P. Y. ThébaultOct 28, 2019
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What can bouncing oil droplets tell us about quantum mechanics?
A recent series of experiments have demonstrated that a classical fluid mechanical system, constituted by an oil droplet bouncing on a vibrating fluid surface, can be induced to display a number of…
Peter W. Evans, Karim P. Y. ThèbaultOct 28, 2019
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The Once and Present Standard Model of Elementary Particle Physics
There are many theories that have resided these last fifty years within the hazy mist we have been calling the Standard Model (SM) of elementary particles. An attempt is made here to construct a…
James D. WellsOct 25, 2019
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Michael Atiyah and Physics: the Later Years
I review aspects of Michael Atiyah's research in fundamental theoretical physics during the last ten years of his life, and contrast his deliberate interest in physics during this period with the…
Bernd SchroersOct 23, 2019
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Bruno Touschek in Germany after the War: 1945-46
Bruno Touschek was an Austrian born theoretical physicist, who proposed and built the first electron-positron collider in 1960 in the Frascati National Laboratories in Italy. In this note we…
Luisa Bonolis, Giulia PancheriOct 20, 2019
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Anthropic Selection of Physical Constants, Quantum Entanglement, and the Multiverse Falsifiability
This paper evaluates some important aspects of the multiverse concept. Firstly, the most realistic opportunity for it which is the spacetime variability of the physical constants and may deliver…
Mariusz P. DabrowskiOct 20, 2019
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Wherefore Quantum Mechanics?
After the development of a self-consistent quantum formalism nearly a century ago, there ensued a quest to understand the often counterintuitive predictions of the theory. These endeavors invariably…
Stephen BoughnOct 17, 2019
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Conceptual Challenges on the Road to the Multiverse
The current debate about a possible change of paradigm from a single universe to a multiverse scenario could have deep implications on our view of cosmology and of science in general. These…
Ana Alonso-Serrano, Gil JannesOct 16, 2019
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