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History and Philosophy of Physics papers — page 88

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Greek Astronomy PhDs: The last 200 years
We have recently compiled a database with all doctoral dissertations (PhDs) completed in modern Greece (1837-2014), in the general area of astronomy and astrophysics, as well as in space and…
V. CharmandarisJul 8, 2015
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The de Broglie universal substratum, the Lochak monopoles and the dark universe
We propose to interpret the dark universe (dark matter and dark energy) of the current cosmological standard model as emerging together with ordinary matter, from the quantum vacuum, which de Broglie…
Gilles Cohen-TannoudjiJul 2, 2015
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Einstein's Third Postulate
Einstein's own demonstration of time dilation taken from his book with L. Infeld (1938) is analyzed. His ingenious circumnavigation of an apparent discrepancy between clock synchronisation and…
Wolfgang EngelhardtJun 30, 2015
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We live in the quantum 4-dimensional Minkowski space-time
We try to define "our world" by stating that "we live in the quantum 4-dimensional Minkowski space-time with the force-fields gauge group $SUc(3) × SUL(2) × U(1) ×…
W-Y. Pauchy HwangJun 29, 2015
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Why Mathematics Works So Well
A major question in philosophy of science involves the unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics in physics. Why should mathematics, created or discovered, with nothing empirical in mind be so…
Noson S. YanofskyJun 28, 2015
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Ars combinatoria and cosmological models: interactions and survival in a Cuzco school painting of the XVIII century
"The Lord made me a very great favor in an imaginary vision" wrote Maria de Agreda in the seventeenth century, "His Majesty put me at the foot of a beautiful Ladder, and showed me I had…
Alejandro Gangui, Gabriela Siracusano, Juan R. Rey-MarquezJun 25, 2015
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Towards a Grand Unified Theory of Mathematics and Physics
Wigner's "unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics" in physics can be understood as a reflection of a deep and unexpected unity between the fundamental structures of mathematics and of…
Peter WoitJun 24, 2015
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Nuclear Weapons in Regional Contexts: The Cases of Argentina and Brazil
South America is a region which is free from nuclear weapons. However, this was not an inevitable development from the relationships among its countries. Indeed, regional rivalries between Brazil and…
Olival Freire Junior, Diego Hurtado, Ildeu C. Moreira et al.Jun 19, 2015
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Dionysian cosmology
In the Nietzschean philosophy, the concept of force from physics is important to build one of its main concepts: the will to power. The concept of force, which Nietzsche found out in the Classical…
J. C. S. NevesJun 17, 2015
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The eternal recurrence today
In this work we have carried out an approach between the nonsingular scientific cosmologies (without the initial singularity, the big bang), specially the cyclic models, and the Nietzsche's…
J. C. S. NevesJun 17, 2015
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Edgar Allan Poe: the first man to conceive a Newtonian evolving Universe
The notion that we live in an evolving universe was established only in the twentieth century with the discovery of the recession of galaxies by Hubble and with the Lemaitre and Friedmann's…
Paolo Molaro, Alberto CappiJun 17, 2015
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Nature, Science, Bayes' Theorem, and the Whole of Reality
A fundamental problem in science is how to make logical inferences from scientific data. Mere data does not suffice since additional information is necessary to select a domain of models or…
Moorad AlexanianJun 16, 2015
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The ultimate tactics of self-referential systems
Mathematics is usually regarded as a kind of language. The essential behavior of physical phenomena can be expressed by mathematical laws, providing descriptions and predictions. In the present essay…
Christine Cordula DantasJun 16, 2015
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Testing typicality in multiverse cosmology
In extracting predictions from theories that describe a multiverse, we face the difficulty that we must assess probability distributions over possible observations, prescribed not just by an…
Feraz AzharJun 13, 2015
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The Order and Integration of Knowledge
William Oliver Martin published "The Order and Integration of Knowledge" in 1957 to address the problem of the nature and the order of various kinds of knowledge; in particular, the…
Moorad AlexanianJun 13, 2015
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Quantum entanglement
Expository paper providing a historical survey of the gradual transformation of the "philosophical discussions" between Bohr, Einstein and Schrödinger on foundational issues in quantum…
Ludmil Hadjiivanov, Ivan TodorovJun 13, 2015
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A naturalist account of the limited, and hence reasonable, effectiveness of mathematics in physics
The aim of this essay is to propose a conception of mathematics that is fully consonant with naturalism. By that I mean the hypothesis that everything that exists is part of the natural world, which…
Lee SmolinJun 11, 2015
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Background Independence, Diffeomorphism Invariance, and the Meaning of Coordinates
Diffeomorphism invariance is sometimes taken to be a criterion of background independence. This claim is commonly accompanied by a second, that the genuine physical magnitudes (the…
Oliver PooleyJun 10, 2015
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To the 90-th anniversary of Dmitry Vasilievich Volkov's birthday
The essay is devoted to the personality of the prominent theorist D.V. Volkov and his pioneer works in quantum field theory and elementary particle physics.
A. S. Bakai, S. V. Peletminskii, N. F. Shul'ga et al.Jun 9, 2015
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Structure de l'univers - quand l'observation guide la theorie... ou pas
The scientific method is often presented, e.g. to children, as a linear process, starting by a question and ending by the elaboration of a theory, with a few experiments in-between. The reality of…
Yael NazeJun 5, 2015
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A new perspective on steady-state cosmology: from Einstein to Hoyle
We recently reported the discovery of an unpublished manuscript by Albert Einstein in which he attempted a 'steady-state' model of the universe, i.e., a cosmic model in which the expanding…
Cormac O'Raifeartaigh, Simon MittonJun 4, 2015
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Dormitory of Physical and Engineering Sciences: Sleeping Beauties May Be Sleeping Innovations Part 1: Basic Properties, Cognitive Environment, Characteristics of the Princes
A Sleeping Beauty in Science is a publication that goes unnoticed (sleeps) for a long time and then, almost suddenly, attracts a lot of attention (is awakened by a prince). In this paper we…
Anthony F. J. van RaanJun 4, 2015
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Babel of Units. The Evolution of Units Systems in Classical Electromagnetism
We recount the history of development of units systems in electrodynamics, and fully derive how each system is constructed. Done for Electromagnetic (emu), Electrostatic (esu), Gaussian, a…
Neal CarronJun 3, 2015
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Time to Quantify Falsifiability
Here we argue that the notion of falsifiability, a key concept in defining a valid scientific theory, can be quantified using Bayesian Model Selection, which is a standard tool in modern statistics.…
Ilya NemenmanJun 2, 2015
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On Einstein Algebras and Relativistic Spacetimes
In this paper, we examine the relationship between general relativity and the theory of Einstein algebras. We show that according to a formal criterion for theoretical equivalence recently proposed…
Sarita Rosenstock, Thomas William Barrett, James Owen WeatherallMay 30, 2015
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