Teleology and Realism in Leibniz's Philosophy of Science

This paper argues for an interpretation of Leibniz’s claim that physics requires both mechanical and teleological principles as a view regarding the interpretation of physical theories. Granting that Leibniz’s fundamental ontology remains non-physical, or mentalistic, it argues that teleological principles nevertheless ground a realist commitment about mechanical descriptions of phenomena. The empirical results of the new sciences, according to Leibniz, have genuine truth conditions: there is a fact of the matter about the regularities observed in experience. Taking this stance, however, requires bringing non-empirical reasons to bear upon mechanical causal claims. This paper first evaluates extant interpretations of Leibniz’s thesis that there are two realms in physics as describing parallel, self-sufficient sets of laws. It then examines Leibniz’s use of teleological principles to interpret scientific results in the context of his interventions in debates in seventeenth-century kinematic theory, and in the teaching of Copernicanism. Leibniz’s use of the principle of continuity and the principle of simplicity, for instance, reveal an underlying commitment to the truth-aptness, or approximate truth-aptness, of the new natural sciences. The paper concludes with a brief remark on the relation between metaphysics, theology, and physics in Leibniz

Numerical simulations of the decay of primordial magnetic turbulence

We perform direct numerical simulations of forced and freely decaying 3D magnetohydrodynamic turbulence in order to model magnetic field evolution during cosmological phase transitions in the early Universe. Our approach assumes the existence of a magnetic field generated either by a process during inflation or shortly thereafter, or by bubble collisions during a phase transition. We show that the final configuration of the magnetic field depends on the initial conditions, while the velocity field is nearly independent of initial conditions.Comment: 10 pages, 6 figures, references added, PRD accepte

Study of a Class of Four Dimensional Nonsingular Cosmological Bounces

We study a novel class of nonsingular time-symmetric cosmological bounces. In this class of four dimensional models the bounce is induced by a perfect fluid with a negative energy density. Metric perturbations are solved in an analytic way all through the bounce. The conditions for generating a scale invariant spectrum of tensor and scalar metric perturbations are discussed.Comment: 16 pages, 10 figure

Spatial contrast sensitivity in adolescents with autism spectrum disorders

Adolescents with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) and typically developing (TD) controls underwent a rigorous psychophysical assessment that measured contrast sensitivity to seven spatial frequencies (0.5-20 cycles/degree). A contrast sensitivity function (CSF) was then fitted for each participant, from which four measures were obtained: visual acuity, peak spatial frequency, peak contrast sensitivity, and contrast sensitivity at a low spatial frequency. There were no group differences on any of the four CSF measures, indicating no differential spatial frequency processing in ASD. Although it has been suggested that detail-oriented visual perception in individuals with ASD may be a result of differential sensitivities to low versus high spatial frequencies, the current study finds no evidence to support this hypothesis

Matching gauge theory and string theory in a decoupling limit of AdS/CFT

We identify a regime of the AdS/CFT correspondence in which we can quantitatively match N=4 super Yang-Mills (SYM) for small 't Hooft coupling with weakly coupled type IIB string theory on AdS_5 x S^5. We approach this regime by taking the same decoupling limit on both sides of the correspondence. On the gauge theory side only the states in the SU(2) sector survive, and in the planar limit the Hamiltonian is given by the XXX_{1/2} Heisenberg spin chain. On the string theory side we show that the decoupling limit corresponds to a non-relativistic limit. In this limit some of the bosonic modes and all of the fermionic modes of the string become infinitely heavy and decouple. We first take the decoupling limit of the string sigma-model classically. This enables us to identify a semi-classical regime with semi-classical string states even though we are in a regime corresponding to small 't Hooft coupling. We furthermore analyze the quantum corrections that enter in taking the limit. From this we infer that gauge theory and string theory match, both in terms of the action and the spectrum, for the leading part and the first correction away from the semi-classical regime. Finally we consider the implications for the hitherto unexplained matching of the one-loop contribution to the energy of certain gauge theory and string theory states, and we explain how our results give a firm basis for the matching of the Hagedorn temperature in hep-th/0608115.Comment: 29 pages, 1 figure. v2: Version published in JHEP, section 4 improve

T-duality and closed string non-commutative (doubled) geometry

We provide some evidence that closed string coordinates will become non-commutative turning on H-field flux background in closed string compactifications. This is in analogy to open string non-commutativity on the world volume of D-branes with B- and F-field background. The class of 3-dimensional backgrounds we are studying are twisted tori (fibrations of a 2-torus over a circle) and the their T-dual H-field, 3-form flux backgrounds (T-folds). The spatial non-commutativity arises due to the non-trivial monodromies of the toroidal Kahler resp. complex structure moduli fields, when going around the closed string along the circle direction. In addition we study closed string non-commutativity in the context of doubled geometry, where we argue that in general a non-commutative closed string background is T-dual to a commutative closed string background and vice versa. Finally, in analogy to open string boundary conditions, we also argue that closed string momentum and winding modes define in some sense D-branes in closed string doubled geometry.Comment: 31 pages, references added, extended version contains new sections 3.3., 3.4 and