Questioning Reality: The Progressive Development of Modern Physics

Humanity has a tendency to divide time. The past is distinct from the present which is entirely separate from the future. In supposedly 20-20 vision history is neatly divided into different sections, distinct eras with sharp lines between them. What is present and in the future is always modern. What is past is something else with another name. Yet time is not divided so neatly. We know this living through it: years and decades blend into one another in a non-uniform progression. To divide human history into separate eras is a necessary simplification, as it helps to ascribe order onto otherwise chaotic chronology. It is still, however, a simplification, and gives incorrect significance to the people and events used to mark beginnings and ends. Rather, the view of history as a constant and uneven progression is more correct. In a simple definition, modern is “of, relating to, or characteristic of the present or the immediate past.” To be modern is to be in current times, meaning that which is pre-modern is necessarily in the past. If, then, modernity is also defined by the characteristics of the immediate past, what caused that dividing line to fall down between the pre-modern and current eras, so different between one another? What makes modernity? The field of physics exhibits a sharp divide between modern and classical branches, defined by different theories, each true in different ways. The modern era of physics is commonly defined as beginning in the 20th century, with the classical era, having begun with the works of Galileo Galilei and Isaac Newton in the 16th and 17th centuries respectively, preceding it. “The beginnings of anything like a corrected history of the science which is now called physics may be placed with considerable definiteness about the beginning of the 17th century and associated with the great name of Galileo,” as Henry Andrews Bumstead writes. 1905, the so-called miracle year of Albert Einstein, in which he published revolutionary papers on mass-energy equivalence, brownian motion, and, most importantly, the photoelectric effect and special relativity, is most often used as the sharp dividing line between physics’ past and present. “Modern physics is the physics of the 20th century…” since “the main building blocks, the theory of relativity and quantum mechanics, were developed early in that century.” Einstein’s breaking down of absolute time and space in his theory of special relativity, a commonly held assumption for millenia beforehand, is what would distinguish the modern from the classical. The aftermath of special relativity is quantum theory, in which strict causality and infinitely divisible space in physics (assumptions from Newton) were also broken down to show that these concepts did not entirely apply at an extremely small scale, namely the atomic and subatomic realms. This concept was also preceded by Einstein’s work, building on that of Max Planck. Alternatively to a dividing line, physics can also be viewed as a gradual development in which assumptions are constantly broken down and reshaped, a position I will argue for here. Newton demolished the prime mover theory of Aristotle, James Clerk Maxwell reshaped Newtonian concepts with the addition of fields and statistical mechanics, Einstein the absoluteness of space and time, and the great quantum physicists of Planck, Niels Bohr, Erwin Shrodinger, and Werner Heisenberg, along with others, determinism, infinitely divisible space, and orderly mechanics with the discovery of the absolute strangeness of quantum mechanics. Instead of seeing two eras as completely separate and distinct from one another, with a point in time or event dividing the two, I will argue in this paper that scientific development in physics is always preceded by previous discoveries by looking at the development of modern physics out of the classical. Nothing comes about independently, as some sort of scientific isolate, as I will show in part I. All advances in physics are built upon the shoulders of giants, and mostly come about as a result of developments within the field itself. In part II, I will also focus on how the great revolutions which created what is now commonly referred to as modern physics were the effects of a larger, sociological questioning of authority occurring throughout the Western world at this time. Modern physics’ emergence is notable for occurring at a time and place in human history, the western world at the turn of the 20th century, which was rife with intense social and intellectual upheaval.https://digitalcommons.njit.edu/stemshowcase/1096/thumbnail.jp

Aspects épistémologiques et méthodologiques de la psychodynamique du travail

Ce texte contient une proposition de discussion concernant l’évolution des concepts en PDT , portant plus spécialement sur des aspects épistémologiques et des propositions d’action dans son domaine. En partant des questions traitées par la psychopathologie du travail, l’intention est de discuter des différentes étapes de l’évolution du champ en mettant en évidence des inflexions de la pensée de Dejours. Summary, p. 44. Resumen, p. 4

A transposição de livros para exposições e uma educação para o leitor-fruidor

O presente artigo analisa duas exposições realizadas nos últimos anos em espaços culturais da cidade de São Paulo, que possuem em comum o fato de serem adaptações de livros: A Biblioteca à Noite, inspirada em obra de Alberto Manguel, e Grande Sertão: Veredas, transposição do romance de Guimarães Rosa. Tendo como ponto de partida a comparação entre as duas exposições, considerando as diferenças fundamentais entre as obras literárias – uma canônica e a outra não – as escolhas curatoriais no processo de transposição do texto em elementos visuais e sensíveis, discutiremos as exposições como recurso pedagógico. Para tanto, buscamos na Base Nacional Comum Curricular o conceito de leitor-fruidor, verificando de que maneira a educação brasileira propõe formar esse sujeito e, dessa forma, fazer uma leitura crítica das exposições analisadas

ESTRANHAMENTO E ALIENAÇÃO EM O PLANETA DO SR. SAMMLER, DE SAUL BELLOW

Este artigo tem como objetivo analisar a presença de elementos de estranhamento e alienação no romance O Planeta do Sr. Sammler, de Saul Bellow, dois temas frequentes na obra do autor. Nesse romance, tais características ganham uma forma peculiar, trazendo esses conceitos a uma reflexão acerca do conflito de gerações, do trauma do Holocausto e da posição do judeu na diversificada sociedade americana

Como um romance judaico se torna um romance americano: o caso de "Herzog"

Este artigo busca apresentar aspectos judaicos do romance Herzog, de Saul Bellow, passando por referências históricas e culturais e chegando ao que seria uma maneira judaica de interpretar a realidade. Dessa forma, há um esforço em situar a obra no contexto da literatura judaica, levando em consideração as dificuldades de conceituar este subgênero, bem como em entender as características fundamentais de um romance que se tornou uma das grandes obras da literatura norte-americana no século XX, ultrapassando o que seria uma literatura de imigrante. How a Jewish novel becomes an American novel: the Herzog case - Abstract: This article aims to present Jewish aspects of Saul Bellow's novel Herzog, from historical and cultural references to what would be a Jewish way of interpreting reality. Thus, there is an effort to situate the work in the realm of Jewish literature, considering the difficulties of conceptualizing such subgenre as well as understanding the fundamental characteristics of a novel that has become one of the great works of American literature in the twentieth century, surpassing what would be an immigrant literature

Mira Schendel: personagem e propositora de reflexões na ficção de Rodrigo Naves

Como crítico de arte, focado especialmente na produção modernista brasileira, Rodrigo Naves estudou e analisou em diversas situações a produção de Mira Schendel, artista suíça radicada no Brasil. Como ficcionista, em O filantropo, o autor insere uma biografia fragmentada de Schendel, em meio a uma obra que aborda muito mais questões morais do sujeito do que o fazer artístico. Uma análise desse texto, bem como dos ensaios que Naves produziu a respeito de Mira, sugere a presença da artista em O filantropo como um indício de que a reflexão moral de Naves é, ao mesmo tempo, estética, tendo Schendel como propositora dessa postura ética. A produção de Mira Schendel reflete uma forma de estar no mundo e interagir com ele, e isso emerge tanto nos textos narrados em primeira pessoa de O filantropo quanto no projeto literário de Rodrigo Naves, que pausou a carreira de crítico para exercitar uma ficção radical

Work and Subjectivity: the psychodinamic of the work view

O presente artigo discute alguns aspectos teóricos da relação entre subjetividade e organização do trabalho. Para tanto, nos pautamos nos principais alicerces teóricos da abordagem dejouriana: a psicanálise, a hermenêutica e a teoria da ação. Buscamos subsidiar o leitor que queira se utilizar da clínica do trabalho em suas ações de intervenção e pesquisa a avançar teoricamente e a se familiarizar com o debate atual desenvolvido pela Psicodinâmica do Trabalho.The present article discusses the theoretical aspects of the relationship between subjectivity and work organization. For such we utilize the basic theoretical support of dejourian theory: psycoanalysis, hermeneutics and theory of action. We seek to subsidize the reader who whishes to utilize the work clinic in their activity of intervention and research to advance theoretically and to get acquainted with the modern debate developed by Psychodynamic of Work