1,309 research outputs found
Eddington & Uncertainty
Sir Arthur Eddington is considered one of the greatest astrophysicist of the
twentieth century and yet he gained a stigma when, in the 1930s, he embarked on
a quest to develop a unified theory of gravity and quantum mechanics. His
attempts ultimately proved fruitless and he was unfortunately partially shunned
by some physicists in the latter portion of his career. In addition some
historians have been less than kind to him regarding this portion of his work.
However, detailed analysis of how this work got started shows that Eddington's
theories were not as outlandish as they are often purported to be. His entire
theory rested on the use of quantum mechanical methods of uncertainty in the
reference frames of relativity. Though the work was ultimately not fruitful, in
hindsight it did foreshadow several later results in physics and his methods
were definitely rigorous. In addition, his philosophy regarding determinism and
uncertainty was actually fairly orthodox for his time. This work begins by
looking at Eddington's life and philosophy and uses this as a basis to explore
his work with uncertainty.Comment: new version to appear in Physics in Perspective (either Sept. or Dec.
issue
Unification Achieved: William Cullenâs Theory of Heat and Phlogiston as an example of his Philosophical Chemistry
William Cullen, lecturer in chemistry at Glasgow and Edinburgh Universities, spent many years formulating his own theory of heat and combustion, the most developed version of which appears in a little-known set of lecture notes of 1765. Cullen's theory is of particular interest to historians of chemistry as an example of his ideal of âphilosophical chemistryâ, an autonomous branch of natural philosophy distinct from the mechanical philosophy, with its own general laws and explanations of phenomena justified by observation. The theory assimilated Joseph Black's recent discovery of fixed air as well as Cullen's investigations of the generation of heat in chemical operations. It was formulated just one year before British chemists' sudden identification of new âairsâ was dramatically to change the field of phlogiston theory. The theory differs in important ways from any version yet discussed. It successfully brought both heat and elective attraction within its explanatory domain. It set out a causal hierarchy which reversed the usual pattern evinced in earlier sets of lecture notes, subordinating the mechanical to the chemical in the form of Cullen's theory of elective attraction. The paper argues that Cullen was attempting to bring the study of heat as well as combustion within the bounds of his âphilosophical chemistryâ by means of his single unifying theory
Proliferation of Post-Newtonian, Non-Relativistic Theories
Theoreticians have formulated a set of fundamental criteria that any theory of gravity should satisfy, two purely theoretical and two that are based on experimental evidence. Thus, a theory must be complete (capable of analyzing from the "first principles" the result of any experiment of interest), self-consistent (its prediction for the outcome of each experiment must be unique), relativistic (at the limit when gravity is neglected compared to other physical interactions, non-gravitational laws of physics must be reduced to special relativity laws), and with the correct Newtonian limit (within the limits of weak gravitational fields and slow motions, they must reproduce Newton's laws).
DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.27848.2688
Introduction to the Neoclassical Interpretation: Quantum Steampunk
In a previous paper we outlined a series of historical touchpoints between classical aether theories and modern theoretical physics which showed a shared conceptual lineage for the modern tools and methods of the most common interpretations and fluid based âHydrodynamicâ treatments of an electromagnetic medium. It was proposed that, though the weight of modern experimentation leaves an extremely narrow and convoluted window for even a reconceptualization of a medium, all of modern physics recognizes a plethora of behaviors and attributes for free space and these physics are interchangeable with modern methods for treating superfluid-like continuums. Thus the mathematical equivalence of the methods do not comprise alternative physics but an alternative interpretation of the same physics. Though many individual components describing a âneo-aetherâ or âquintessenceâ are available, an overarching structural outline of how these tools can work together to provide an alternative working overview of modern physics has remained undefined. This paper will propose a set of introductory concepts in the first outline of a toy model which will later connect the alternative tools and conceptualizations with their modern counterparts. This introductory paper provides the simpler â100-miles outâ overview of the whole of physics from this perspective, in an easily comprehensible, familiar and intuitive, informal dialog fashion. While this paper grants the largest and loosest introductory overview, subsequent papers in this series will address the finite connections between modern physics and this hydrodynamic view
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