Author: Robert Bruce Lindsay
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780918024176
Category : Mathematical physics
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Get Book Here

Book Description

Author: Steve Adams
Publisher: Mercury Learning and Information
ISBN: 1683929683
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 994

Get Book Here

Book Description
This updated edition is designed as a self-teaching, calculus-based introduction to the concepts of physics. Numerous examples, applications, and figures provide readers with simple explanations. Standard topics include vectors, conservation of energy, Newton’s Laws, momentum, motion, gravity, relativity, waves, fluid mechanics, circuits, nuclear physics, astrophysics, and more. FEATURES: Designed as a calculus-based, introduction to the key concepts of physics Practical techniques, including the collection, presentation, analysis and evaluation of data, are discussed in the context of key experiments linked to the theoretical spine of the work

Author: Anthony Aguirre
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 3319130455
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 279

Get Book Here

Book Description
The essays in this book look at way in which the fundaments of physics might need to be changed in order to make progress towards a unified theory. They are based on the prize-winning essays submitted to the FQXi essay competition “Which of Our Basic Physical Assumptions Are Wrong?”, which drew over 270 entries. As Nobel Laureate physicist Philip W. Anderson realized, the key to understanding nature’s reality is not anything “magical”, but the right attitude, “the focus on asking the right questions, the willingness to try (and to discard) unconventional answers, the sensitive ear for phoniness, self-deception, bombast, and conventional but unproven assumptions.” The authors of the eighteen prize-winning essays have, where necessary, adapted their essays for the present volume so as to (a) incorporate the community feedback generated in the online discussion of the essays, (b) add new material that has come to light since their completion and (c) to ensure accessibility to a broad audience of readers with a basic grounding in physics. The Foundational Questions Institute, FQXi, catalyzes, supports, and disseminates research on questions at the foundations of physics and cosmology, particularly new frontiers and innovative ideas integral to a deep understanding of reality, but unlikely to be supported by conventional funding sources.

Author: Steven Weinberg
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108841767
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 325

Get Book Here

Book Description
Nobel Laureate Steven Weinberg explains the foundations of modern physics in historical context for undergraduates and beyond.

Author: Mario Bunge
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 3642492878
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 267

Get Book Here

Book Description
This is not an introduction to physics but an analysis of its founda tions. Indeed, the aims of this book are: (1) to analyze the form and content of some of the key ideas of physics; (2) to formulate several basic physical theories in an explicit and orderly (i. e. , axiomatic) fashion; (3) to exhibit their presuppositions and discuss some of their philosoph ical implications; (4) to discuss some of the controversial issues, and (5) to debunk certain dusty philosophical tenets that obscure the under standing of physics and hinder its progress. To the extent to which these goals are attained, the volume can serve as a companion to studies in theoretical physics aiming at deepening the understanding of the logical structure and the physical meaning of our science. In order to keep the book slender, whole fields of basic physical research had to be excluded - chiefly many-body physics, quantum field theories, and elementary particle theories. A large coverage was believed to be less important than a comparatively detailed analysis and reconstruction of three representative monuments: classical mechan ics, general relativity, and quantum mechanics, as well as their usually unrecognized presuppositions. The reader is invited to join the project and supply some of the many missing chapters - or to rewrite the present ones entirely.

Author: M. Bunge
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 3642806244
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 180

Get Book Here

Book Description
This is a collection of technical papers in the foundations and the philoso It takes both "foundations" phy of physics with emphasis on the former. and "philosophy" in their narrow technical senses but it construes "physics" lato sensu, as including all the sciences of nonliving systems. All eleven papers constituting this volume were written for it. The problems tackled in this book concern certain basic concepts, hypotheses, theories, and research programmes in physical science. Some of these problems are topical, others new, but they are all fundamental and the subject of research and controversy. Consequently this volume is expected to serve those students, teachers and researchers who enjoy learning, teaching, discussing or doing theoretical physics. It is addressed to the nine to niners rather than to the nine to fivers. It is expected to attract the theoretician in search for new basic ideas, the teacher eager to perfect his understanding of physical theory and transmit his own zeal and his own doubts, as well as the student anxious to get down to essentials. This book may also interest the mathematician for whom physics offers a challenge (or a good pretext). Finally, it should get the attention of the philosopher of science aware of the advantages of philosophizing on foundations research problems rather than on the popularization of some results of research. There are at least two reasons for valuing foundations research.

Author: David Wallace
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0198814321
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 169

Get Book Here

Book Description
Philosophy of physics is concerned with the deepest theories of modern physics - quantum theory, our theories of space, time and symmetry, and thermal physics - and their strange, even bizarre conceptual implications. This book explores the core topics in philosophy of physics, and discusses their relevance for both scientists and philosophers.

Author: Tim Maudlin
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691165718
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 199

Get Book Here

Book Description
Philosophical foundations of the physics of space-time This concise book introduces nonphysicists to the core philosophical issues surrounding the nature and structure of space and time, and is also an ideal resource for physicists interested in the conceptual foundations of space-time theory. Tim Maudlin's broad historical overview examines Aristotelian and Newtonian accounts of space and time, and traces how Galileo's conceptions of relativity and space-time led to Einstein's special and general theories of relativity. Maudlin explains special relativity with enough detail to solve concrete physical problems while presenting general relativity in more qualitative terms. Additional topics include the Twins Paradox, the physical aspects of the Lorentz-FitzGerald contraction, the constancy of the speed of light, time travel, the direction of time, and more. Introduces nonphysicists to the philosophical foundations of space-time theory Provides a broad historical overview, from Aristotle to Einstein Explains special relativity geometrically, emphasizing the intrinsic structure of space-time Covers the Twins Paradox, Galilean relativity, time travel, and more Requires only basic algebra and no formal knowledge of physics

Author: Peter Rowlands
Publisher: World Scientific
ISBN: 9812709150
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 738

Get Book Here

Book Description
Unique in its field, this book uses a methodology that is entirely new, creating the simplest and most abstract foundations for physics to date. The author proposes a fundamental description of process in a universal computational rewrite system, leading to an irreducible form of relativistic quantum mechanics from a single operator. This is not only simpler, and more fundamental, but also seemingly more powerful than any other quantum mechanics formalism available. The methodology finds immediate applications in particle physics, theoretical physics and theoretical computing. In addition, taking the rewrite structure more generally as a description of process, the book shows how it can be applied to large-scale structures beyond the realm of fundamental physics. Sample Chapter(s). Chapter 1: Zero (228 KB). Contents: Zero; Why Does Physics Work?; The Emergence of Physics; Groups and Representations; Breaking the Dirac Code; The Dirac Nilpotent; Nonrelativistic Quantum Mechanics and the Classical Transition; The Classical and Special Relativistic Approximations; The Resolution of Paradoxes; Electric, Strong and Weak Interactions; QED and Its Analogues; Vacuum; Fermion and Boson Structures; A Representation of Strong and Weak Interactions; Grand Unification and Particle Masses; The Factor 2 and Duality; Gravity and Inertia; Dimensionality, Strings and Quantum Gravity; Nature''s Code; Nature''s Rule; Infinity. Readership: Researchers in quantum, theoretical and high energy physics.

Author: Katherine Brading
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 0429787197
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 122

Get Book Here

Book Description
The centerpiece of Émilie Du Châtelet’s philosophy of science is her Foundations of Physics, first published in 1740. The Foundations contains epistemology, metaphysics, methodology, mechanics, and physics, including such pressing issues of the time as whether there are atoms, the appropriate roles of God and of hypotheses in scientific theorizing, how (if at all) bodies are capable of acting on one another, and whether gravity is an action-at-a-distance force. Du Châtelet sought to resolve these issues within a single philosophical framework that builds on her critique and appraisal of all the leading alternatives (Cartesian, Newtonian, Leibnizian, and so forth) of the period. The text is remarkable for being the first to attempt such a synthetic project, and even more so for the accessibility and clarity of the writing. This book argues that Du Châtelet put her finger on the central problems that lay at the intersection of physics and metaphysics at the time, and tackled them drawing on the most up-to-date resources available. It will be a useful source for students and scholars interested in the history and philosophy of science, and in the impact of women philosophers in the early modern period.