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History and Philosophy of Physics papers — page 80

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The theoretical physics ecosystem behind the discovery of the Higgs boson
The discovery of the Higgs boson in 2012 was one of the most significant developments of science in the last half century. A simplified history has Peter Higgs positing it in the mid-1960s followed…
James D. WellsSep 14, 2016
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The Source of Solar Energy, ca. 1840-1910: From Meteoric Hypothesis to Radioactive Speculations
Why does the Sun shine? Today we know the answer to the question and we also know that earlier answers were quite wrong. The problem of the source of solar energy became an important part of physics…
Helge KraghSep 9, 2016
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Werner Heisenberg and the German Uranium Project 1939 - 1945. Myths and Facts
The results of a careful analysis of all the available information on the activities of Heisenberg and of his talks during the years 1939 to 1945 can be summarized in the following way. Like several…
Klaus GottsteinSep 9, 2016
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In memory of Leo P. Kadanoff
Leo Kadanoff has worked in many fields of statistical mechanics. His contributions had an enormous impact. This holds in particular for critical phenomena, where he explained Widom's homogeneity…
Franz J. WegnerSep 9, 2016
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Vito Volterra and his commemoration for the centenary of Faraday's discovery of electromagnetic induction
The paper presents a memoir of 1931 written by Vito Volterra on the Italian physicists of the nineteenth century and the researches these scientists made after the discoveries of Michael Faraday on…
Amelia Carolina SparavignaSep 9, 2016
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Three Aspects of Typicality in Multiverse Cosmology
Extracting predictions from cosmological theories that describe a multiverse, for what we are likely to observe in our domain, is crucial to establishing the validity of these theories. One way to…
Feraz AzharSep 8, 2016
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The dangers of non-empirical confirmation
In the book "String Theory and the Scientific Method", Richard Dawid describes a few of the many non-empirical arguments that motivate theoretical physicists' confidence in a theory,…
Carlo RovelliSep 2, 2016
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Cuba: the strategic choice of advanced scientific development, 1959-2014
Cuba is continuing attracting the attention of the international scientific community for some important and unexpected achievements in applied science such as health biotechnology. They represent…
Angelo Baracca, Rosella FranconiSep 1, 2016
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Relationalism about mechanics based on a minimalist ontology of matter
This paper elaborates on relationalism about space and time as motivated by a minimalist ontology of the physical world: there are only matter points that are individuated by the distance relations…
Antonio Vassallo, Dirk-André Deckert, Michael EsfeldSep 1, 2016
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On the bending of light from the Newtonian point of view
Within the framework of modified Newtonian gravity it is shown that the corrected Newtonian scheme can't explain both Mercury's perihelion advance and the bending of light at the same time.
Attilio PalatiniAug 31, 2016
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How the green light was given for gravitational wave search
The recent detection of gravitational waves by the LIGO/VIRGO team is an incredibly impressive achievement of experimental physics. It is also a tremendous success of the theory of General…
C Denson Hill, Pawel NurowskiAug 30, 2016
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Creation of a group on particle accelerator science and technology in Mexico
The story-line of the activities that have produced the first group of scientists in Mexico working on particle accelerator science and technology is briefly presented.
J. G. Contreras, M. NapsucialeAug 25, 2016
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Leibnizian relationalism for general relativistic physics
An ontology of Leibnizian relationalism, consisting in distance relations among sparse matter points and their change only, is well recognized as a serious option in the context of classical…
Antonio Vassallo, Michael EsfeldAug 25, 2016
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Waiting for the W and the Higgs
The search for the left-handed W bosons, the proposed quanta of the weak interaction, and the Higgs boson, which spontaneously breaks the symmetry of unification of electromagnetic and weak…
M. J. TannenbaumAug 24, 2016
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Taking physical infinity seriously
The concept of infinity took centuries to achieve recognized status in the field of mathematics, despite the fact that it was implicitly present in nearly all mathematical endeavors. Here I explore…
Don PerlisAug 22, 2016
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A persistent particle ontology for QFT in terms of the Dirac sea
We show that the Bohmian approach in terms of persisting particles that move on continuous trajectories following a deterministic law can be literally applied to QFT. By means of the Dirac sea model…
Dirk-Andre Deckert, Michael Esfeld, Andrea OldofrediAug 22, 2016
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How Einstein Got His Field Equations
We study the pages in Albert Einstein's 1916 landmark paper in the Annalen der Physik where he derived his field equations for gravity. Einstein made two heuristic and physically insightful…
Sam WaltersAug 19, 2016
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Vladimir Naumovich Gribov: Pieces of biography
The talk presents the main lines of biography of the prominent physicist and bright personality. Also given is a necessarily brief description of Gribov's scientific work.
Ya. I. AzimovAug 19, 2016
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Guido Altarelli and the evolution of QCD
I describe the contributions of Guido Altarelli to the development of Quantum Chromodynamics from the discovery of asymptotic freedom until the end of the SppS collider era, 1973-1985.
R. Keith EllisAug 19, 2016
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Life and space dimensionality: A brief review of old and new entangled arguments
A general sketch on how the problem of space dimensionality depends on anthropic arguments is presented. Several examples of how life has been used to constraint space dimensionality (and vice-versa)…
Francisco CarusoAug 18, 2016
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The origins of the research on the foundations of quantum mechanics (and other critical activities) in italy during the 1970s
We present a reconstruction of the studies on the Foundations of Quantum Mechanics (FQM) carried out in Italy at the turn of the 1960s. Actually, they preceded the revival of the interest of the…
Angelo Baracca, Silvio Bergia, Flavio Del SantoAug 18, 2016
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On the history of Levi-Civita's parallel transport
In this historical note, we wish to highlight the crucial conceptual role played by the principle of virtual work of analytical mechanics, in working out the fundamental notion of parallel transport…
Giuseppe IuratoAug 6, 2016
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No actual measurement ... was required: Maxwell and Cavendish's null method for the inverse square law of electrostatics
In 1877 James Clerk Maxwell and his student Donald MacAlister refined Henry Cavendish's 1773 null experiment demonstrating the absence of electricity inside a charged conductor. This null result…
Isobel FalconerAug 4, 2016
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Interactional Expertise and Embodiment
In Part 1 of this paper, I introduce the idea of interactional expertise while in Part 2, I focus on its implications for philosophical theories of the importance of the body in forming our…
Harry CollinsJul 27, 2016
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Symbols of a cosmic order
The world runs on communicated sequences of symbols, e.g. numerals. Examining both engineered and natural communications networks reveals an unsuspected order that depends on contact with an…
F. Hadi Madjid, John M. MyersJul 26, 2016
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