History and Philosophy of Physics

1610 Submissions

[5] viXra:1610.0387 [pdf] submitted on 2016-10-31 20:48:22

History of Astronomy

Authors: Rochelle Forrester
Comments: 5 Pages.

The ultimate cause of much historical, social and cultural change is the gradual accumulation of human knowledge of the environment. The human environment has a particular structure so that human knowledge of the environment is acquired in a particular order. The structure of the universe and the nature of the human sensory apparatus ensured that humans initially believed, the earth was not moving and the sun orbited the earth, a system known as the Ptolemaic system. Suggestions the earth spun on its axis and orbited the sun were counter intuitive and generally not accepted until new instruments such as the telescope provided new information which suggested the earth spun on its axis and orbited the sun in elliptical orbits which became known as the Newtonian system. Improved observations showed the Newtonian system was wrong and General Relativity which had the earth and other planets orbiting the sun in circular orbits, in curved four-dimensional space-time, became the accepted view of the universe. The naked eye explanation of the universe was accepted first, and more complex knowledge acquired later, using better instruments, led to the Newtonian system and then General Relativity. The order of these belief systems was inevitable as new methods of observing the universe became available which provided new information about the universe. This is an example of how human social and cultural history follows a particular path, a path that is determined by the structure of the human environment.
Category: History and Philosophy of Physics

[4] viXra:1610.0311 [pdf] submitted on 2016-10-26 01:14:49

Space, Time and Information: Toys in the hands of Lord Venkatesha

Authors: Sai Venkatesh Balasubramanian
Comments: 9 Pages.

Building on some of the most phenomenal theories and observations of science, this article probes deep into the nature of the three fundamental entities of the universe: space, time and information. Through a series of implications and inferences involving Indian Spirituality, one sees these entities in the three Shaktis of Iccha, Jnana and Kriya, as well as in the Avataras of Varaha, Narasimha and Rama-Krishna-Kalki. Importantly, one sees these three entities as the three ‘toys’ – Shankha, Chakra and Thirunaamam of the Lord Venkatesha, who is the Universal Mother Herself as the Kali-Yuga salvation yielding form of Baalaa.
Category: History and Philosophy of Physics

[3] viXra:1610.0167 [pdf] submitted on 2016-10-15 10:21:36

Mass, Force, & Energy: A New Formulation

Authors: Stanley James Speck
Comments: 24 Pages.

What is energy? This question, as Richard Feynman has pointed out, has never been given a satisfactory explanation. What energy “is” - in some ultimate sense – is, strangely enough, still an open question. In this speculative venture which is both a physical and philosophical quest, we propose a definite and perhaps startling answer: Energy is not something which causes motion; it is motion itself, or rather, it is a “quantity of motion” calculated as the sum of the speeds of all the particles in the system. Mass is a quantity of motion confined or bound to a certain region of space. Force is the rate of change of a quantity of motion when an object accelerates. Any “quantity of motion” can thus be calculated as Kinetic Energy or as Mass (or as Work), depending upon the needs and circumstances of the inquiry. We give a lucid, step by step explanation of this idea, and suggest that motion is not an accidental quality, but ontologically fundamental. We call the ultimate object which is moving a ‘particle point,’ which, unlike the geometric point, is in any region of space finite in number. The energy in any finite region of space is consequently the number particle-points multiplied by their speed, or more precisely, by their speed squared. The speed of all such particles is constant and uniform: the speed of light. We lead the skeptical reader through these formulations, accounting for momentum, inertia, and entropy along the way. In the end, as many questions are raised as are answered, but it is an open road, as it should be. massforceenergy@gmail.com
Category: History and Philosophy of Physics

[2] viXra:1610.0085 [pdf] submitted on 2016-10-07 07:39:37

Niels Bohr's Philosophy: The Epistemological Lesson of Quantum Mechanics

Authors: Ian von Hegner
Comments: 44 Pages.

Niels Bohr thought that what quantum mechanics has taught us is not only to understand something new, but also a new meaning of the term “to understand”. Bohr wanted to free himself from ontology by putting emphasis on epistemology; i.e. on certain conditions for observation and description. He believed that the epistemological lesson of quantum mechanics was a crucial one. Basically it has two important aspects. 1. Bohr's philosophy leads to a break with the so-called correspondence theory for truth and meaning. It states that true propositions are descriptions of a world that is independent of our observations; i.e. that on a regular basis one can compare language with reality, that is, in language compare the two areas against each other. Bohr believed that this did not make sense, since in many situations we cannot add meaning to a world that has a "an sich" structure (the thing-in-itself), which in turn can be depicted when observed. 2. All knowledge is attained under certain conditions for description. Bohr thought that the long-lasting criterion for valid knowledge is that we can communicate it unambiguously to each other. When Bohr emphasised that "we are suspended in language" in the sense that all knowledge determines what we can say about the world in an understandable way, and not what the world actually is, this must be understood in the sense that we only know the world as recognised; i.e., structured on the basis of the conditions for description, to which we are, as part of the world, necessarily are subjected to. Bohr's emphasis on conditions for descriptions invalidates the well-known distinction between analytic and synthetic propositions. An important feature of the descriptive use of ordinary language, as well as in classical physics, is that description is based on a dividing line between subject and object. This results in idealism and materialism not being tenable positions. Furthermore, it is such that we cannot use the designation of things independently of the designation of time and space. Logical principles are only meaningfully applied in situations relating to our conditions for observation. So based on inspiration from Bohr, Favrholdt developed a more adequate and comprehensive philosophy, where he, among other things, states that all humans possess a fundamental language, underlying all languages. This constitutes a number of concepts – the core – where the correct use is dictated by the structure of the world, which humans learn through sensory perception and action.
Category: History and Philosophy of Physics

[1] viXra:1610.0056 [pdf] submitted on 2016-10-04 16:52:30

The Physics of Mathematical Philosophy

Authors: C. A. Laforet
Comments: 13 Pages.

The subjects of classical and quantum physics are examined in relation to Goedel's Incompletness Theorems where classical physics is assumed to be a mathematically consistent system while quantum mechanics is assumed to be a mathematically complete system.
Category: History and Philosophy of Physics