Negative Energy: Why Interdisciplinary Physics Requires Multiple Ontologies

Much recent work in physics education research has focused on ontological metaphors for energy, particularly the substance ontology and its pedagogical affordances. The concept of negative energy problematizes the substance ontology for energy, but in many instructional settings, the specific difficulties around negative energy are outweighed by the general advantages of the substance ontology. However, we claim that our interdisciplinary setting (a physics class that builds deep connections to biology and chemistry) leads to a different set of considerations and conclusions. In a course designed to draw interdisciplinary connections, the centrality of chemical bond energy in biology necessitates foregrounding negative energy from the beginning. We argue that the emphasis on negative energy requires a combination of substance and location ontologies. The location ontology enables energies both "above" and "below" zero. We present preliminary student data that illustrate difficulties in reasoning about negative energy, and the affordances of the location metaphor.Comment: 4 pages, submitted to PERC 2013 Proceeding

Formation and interactions of cold and ultracold molecules: new challenges for interdisciplinary physics

Progress on researches in the field of molecules at cold and ultracold temperatures is reported in this review. It covers extensively the experimental methods to produce, detect and characterize cold and ultracold molecules including association of ultracold atoms, deceleration by external fields and kinematic cooling. Confinement of molecules in different kinds of traps is also discussed. The basic theoretical issues related to the knowledge of the molecular structure, the atom-molecule and molecule-molecule mutual interactions, and to their possible manipulation and control with external fields, are reviewed. A short discussion on the broad area of applications completes the review.Comment: to appear in Reports on Progress in Physic

A generalized model via random walks for information filtering

There could exist a simple general mechanism lurking beneath collaborative filtering and interdisciplinary physics approaches which have been successfully applied to online E-commerce platforms. Motivated by this idea, we propose a generalized model employing the dynamics of the random walk in the bipartite networks. Taking into account the degree information, the proposed generalized model could deduce the collaborative filtering, interdisciplinary physics approaches and even the enormous expansion of them. Furthermore, we analyze the generalized model with single and hybrid of degree information on the process of random walk in bipartite networks, and propose a possible strategy by using the hybrid degree information for different popular objects to toward promising precision of the recommendation

The evolution of interdisciplinarity in physics research

Science, being a social enterprise, is subject to fragmentation into groups that focus on specialized areas or topics. Often new advances occur through cross-fertilization of ideas between sub-fields that otherwise have little overlap as they study dissimilar phenomena using different techniques. Thus to explore the nature and dynamics of scientific progress one needs to consider the large-scale organization and interactions between different subject areas. Here, we study the relationships between the sub-fields of Physics using the Physics and Astronomy Classification Scheme (PACS) codes employed for self-categorization of articles published over the past 25 years (1985-2009). We observe a clear trend towards increasing interactions between the different sub-fields. The network of sub-fields also exhibits core-periphery organization, the nucleus being dominated by Condensed Matter and General Physics. However, over time Interdisciplinary Physics is steadily increasing its share in the network core, reflecting a shift in the overall trend of Physics research.Comment: Published version, 10 pages, 8 figures + Supplementary Informatio

General U(N) gauge transformations in the realm of covariant Hamiltonian field theory

A consistent, local coordinate formulation of covariant Hamiltonian field theory is presented. While the covariant canonical field equations are equivalent to the Euler-Lagrange field equations, the covariant canonical transformation theory offers more general means for defining mappings that preserve the action functional - and hence the form of the field equations - than the usual Lagrangian description. Similar to the well-known canonical transformation theory of point dynamics, the canonical transformation rules for fields are derived from generating functions. As an interesting example, we work out the generating function of type F_2 of a general local U(N) gauge transformation and thus derive the most general form of a Hamiltonian density that is form-invariant under local U(N) gauge transformations.Comment: 36 pages, Symposium on Exciting Physics: Quarks and gluons/atomic nuclei/biological systems/networks, Makutsi Safari Farm, South Africa, 13-20 November 2011; Exciting Interdisciplinary Physics, Walter Greiner, Ed., FIAS Interdisciplinary Science Series, Springer International Publishing Switzerland, 201

Data-driven modeling of collaboration networks: A cross-domain analysis

We analyze large-scale data sets about collaborations from two different domains: economics, specifically 22.000 R&D alliances between 14.500 firms, and science, specifically 300.000 co-authorship relations between 95.000 scientists. Considering the different domains of the data sets, we address two questions: (a) to what extent do the collaboration networks reconstructed from the data share common structural features, and (b) can their structure be reproduced by the same agent-based model. In our data-driven modeling approach we use aggregated network data to calibrate the probabilities at which agents establish collaborations with either newcomers or established agents. The model is then validated by its ability to reproduce network features not used for calibration, including distributions of degrees, path lengths, local clustering coefficients and sizes of disconnected components. Emphasis is put on comparing domains, but also sub-domains (economic sectors, scientific specializations). Interpreting the link probabilities as strategies for link formation, we find that in R&D collaborations newcomers prefer links with established agents, while in co-authorship relations newcomers prefer links with other newcomers. Our results shed new light on the long-standing question about the role of endogenous and exogenous factors (i.e., different information available to the initiator of a collaboration) in network formation.Comment: 25 pages, 13 figures, 4 table

Anomalous diffusion and nonlinear relaxation phenomena in stochastic models of interdisciplinary physics

The study of nonlinear dynamical systems in the presence of both Gaussian and non-Gaussian noise sources is the topic of this research work. In particular, after shortly present new theoretical results for statistical characteristics in the framework of Markovian theory, we analyse four different physical systems in the presence of Levy noise source. (a) The residence time problem of a particle subject to a non-Gaussian noise source in arbitrary potential profile was analyzed and the exact analytical results for the statistical characteristics of the residence time for anomalous diffusion in the form of Levy flights in fully unstable potential profile was obtained. Noise enhanced stability phenomenon was found in the system investigated. (b) The correlation time of the particle coordinate as a function of the height of potential barrier, the position of potential wells and noise intensity was investigated in the case of confined steady-state Levy flights with Levy index alpha=1, that is Cauchy noise, in the symmetric bistable quartic potential. (c) The stationary spectral characteristics of superdiffusion of Levy flights in one-dimensional confinement potential profiles were investigated both theoretically and numerically. Specifically, for Cauchy stable noise we calculated the steady-state probability density function for an infinitely deep rectangular potential well and for a symmetric steep potential well. (d) For two-dimensional diffusion the general Kolmogorov equation for the joint probability density function of particle coordinates was obtained by functional methods directly from two Langevin equations with statistically independent non-Gaussian noise sources. We compared the properties of Brownian diffusion and Levy flights in parabolic potential with radial symmetry. Afterwards, we analyzed the nonlinear relaxation in the presence of Gaussian noise for the stochastic switching dynamics of the memristors. We have studied three different models. (a) We started from consideration of the simplest model of resistive switching. (b) Further, the charge-controlled and the current-controlled ideal Chua memristors with external Gaussian noise were investigated. For both cases we have obtained exact analytical expressions for the probability density function of the charge flowing through the memristor and of the memristance. (c) Moreover, we proposed a stochastic macroscopic model of a memristor, based on a generalization of known approaches and experimental results. Steady-state concentration of defects for different boundary conditions was found. Also we analysed how the concentration of defects is changed with time under arbitrary values of external voltage, noise intensity, effective diffusion coefficient and other parameters. An examination of the results was performed, the possible implications of this work and the future development of this study were outlined

From Social Simulation to Integrative System Design

As the recent financial crisis showed, today there is a strong need to gain "ecological perspective" of all relevant interactions in socio-economic-techno-environmental systems. For this, we suggested to set-up a network of Centers for integrative systems design, which shall be able to run all potentially relevant scenarios, identify causality chains, explore feedback and cascading effects for a number of model variants, and determine the reliability of their implications (given the validity of the underlying models). They will be able to detect possible negative side effect of policy decisions, before they occur. The Centers belonging to this network of Integrative Systems Design Centers would be focused on a particular field, but they would be part of an attempt to eventually cover all relevant areas of society and economy and integrate them within a "Living Earth Simulator". The results of all research activities of such Centers would be turned into informative input for political Decision Arenas. For example, Crisis Observatories (for financial instabilities, shortages of resources, environmental change, conflict, spreading of diseases, etc.) would be connected with such Decision Arenas for the purpose of visualization, in order to make complex interdependencies understandable to scientists, decision-makers, and the general public.Comment: 34 pages, Visioneer White Paper, see http://www.visioneer.ethz.c