15 papers
This paper proposes a "bridge theory" framework, comprising partition, magnitude, and closure conditions, to explain how inter-level scientific connections require constructs that generate a "contingent space" of states not determined by either the underlying dynamical or observational theories alone.
The paper argues that the "problem of time" in quantum cosmology causes the disappearance of the time variable necessary to define the universe's age, thereby stripping classical models of their ability to make the physically meaningful prediction that the universe is 13.8 billion years old and suggesting a fundamental flaw in this approach.
This paper argues that quantum computational advantage has indeed been achieved, despite the lack of consensus, and outlines future directions for theory and experiments in the field.
This paper provides a comprehensive introductory overview of quantum mechanics, tracing its foundational postulates and exploring how various interpretations—from Copenhagen and de Broglie-Bohm to many-worlds and objective collapse models—address central issues such as measurement, nonlocality, contextuality, and the emergence of classical reality.
This paper expounds on and extends cognitive scientist Donald Hoffman's argument that human perception is an evolutionary interface for fitness rather than reality, by integrating key concepts from modern physics such as black holes, the holographic principle, string theory, duality, quantum gravity, and special relativity to support his view.
This paper argues that the late emergence of chaos theory in the 1960s, despite its mathematical foundations being established by Poincaré and his colleagues decades earlier, was primarily caused by the strict empiricist tenets of positivism, which led to the dismissal of chaotic systems as "useless" and "meaningless" mathematics due to their perceived lack of grounding in experience.
This paper argues that Soulas et al.'s proposed construction of a unique tensor product structure fails as a counterexample to Stoica's impossibility proof because it cannot simultaneously maintain invariance and compatibility with physical observations, thereby confirming the trilemma that preferred structures cannot emerge solely from the Hamiltonian and state vector.
This paper introduces a "heptalemma" demonstrating that seven plausible theses about physical reality are jointly inconsistent with quantum mechanics while any six are consistent, thereby providing a novel framework for classifying quantum interpretations and diagnosing departures from classicality.
The paper refutes the claim that Hilbert spaces are unphysical due to unbounded operators, arguing instead that infinite expectation values are not problematic and that replacing Hilbert spaces with Schwartz spaces would introduce greater theoretical issues by excluding meaningful Hamiltonian evolutions.
This paper extends a geometry-first formulation of the Standard Model to spontaneous symmetry breaking and Yukawa couplings, demonstrating how these mechanisms can be explained through purely geometric terms that offer a more general and transparent account of charge quantization than traditional symmetry-based approaches.
This paper argues that we cannot empirically determine whether the universe had a beginning, demonstrating that common defenses of a cosmic origin rely on confirmation theory errors and that, due to extensions of the Malament-Manchak theorems, observers in almost all classical spacetimes cannot distinguish between models with a past singularity and those that are beginningless or lack the requisite time ordering.
This paper demonstrates how a classical physicist, by applying dimensional analysis to a hydrogen atom alongside empirical blackbody radiation laws, could have independently derived the Planck constant and reconstructed the energy and size scales of the Bohr atom prior to its historical proposal.
This paper argues that Relational Quantum Mechanics requires a complementary account distinguishing physical interaction from informational coherence to explain observer persistence and ensure empirical confirmation in multi-observer scenarios, as the theory's current definition of an observer as merely an interacting physical system is insufficient.
This paper provides a modern mathematical review of the Bohr-Sommerfeld atomic model, utilizing semiclassical methods to rederive quantization rules and energy levels while establishing their connections to the Schrödinger and Dirac equations.
This paper discusses Erwin Schrödinger's discovery of the relativistic wave equation for a spin-zero charged particle in a Coulomb field and explains the reasons behind his decision not to publish it.