127 papers
This collection explores the fascinating intersection of physics and history, where scientists and scholars investigate how our understanding of the universe has evolved over centuries. These papers often examine the development of key theories, the social contexts of major discoveries, or the historical accuracy of scientific narratives, offering a unique perspective on how past ideas shape modern research.
Gist.Science curates every new preprint in this specific area directly from arXiv, ensuring you stay ahead of the curve. For each paper, our team generates both a clear, plain-language overview for general readers and a detailed technical summary for experts, making complex historical analyses of physics accessible to everyone.
Below are the latest contributions in the history of physics, ranging from archival studies of early experiments to modern reinterpretations of classic theories.
This paper advocates for a pragmatist interpretation of quantum mechanics that rejects the theory's role as a direct representation of physical reality, instead framing quantum states and probabilities as objective, normative tools for guiding beliefs and resolving foundational issues like the measurement problem and non-locality through their practical application in specific environmental contexts.
This paper commemorates the centennial of Yuri Lvovich Klimontovich's birth by reviewing his significant contributions to kinetic theory, with a specific focus on his theory of fluctuations.
This paper formalizes the requirements for a physical theory to be considered nonsuperdeterministic by establishing that measurement outcomes and settings must be statistically representative through vetted random sampling, thereby defining the operational meaning of free will and demonstrating that superdeterminism is inherently contextual.
The paper proposes an operational reconstructive approach to quantum theory that moves beyond traditional formalism-based interpretation by deriving physical principles from experimental data and mathematical structures, using the reconstruction of identical particles to demonstrate how this method yields a novel, empirically grounded metaphysical profile while avoiding metaphysical pitfalls.
This paper catalogs nine IAU-approved impact craters on Mercury named after Persian-Tajik poets, detailing their coordinates, geological features, and approval timeline to demonstrate how planetary nomenclature functions as a stable mechanism for preserving and recognizing Tajik-Persian cultural heritage within the broader context of Solar System naming conventions.
This paper investigates the feasibility of interpreting time-symmetric stochastic mechanics as a trajectory-based foundation for quantum field theory, demonstrating that while Drummond's formalism yields non-Markovian dynamics that evade standard no-go theorems, a complete trajectory interpretation for arbitrary quantum states remains unproven due to the inability to represent all Husimi -functions as weighted averages of conditional probabilities.
This paper presents a formal derivation of the Schrödinger equation for a particle's wave function by treating it as a probability amplitude and applying the fundamental relations and to the associated probability wave, thereby offering a rigorous alternative to Schrödinger's original heuristic approach.
This paper reconstructs the historical transition from Hole theory to modern quantum field theory between 1933 and 1937, highlighting Ettore Majorana's 1937 work as the definitive rejection of negative energy solutions and the establishment of anti-commuting fermionic fields.
This paper traces the historical development of the atomic bomb and examines the profound moral dilemmas faced by scientists regarding its use against Japan, aiming to contribute to future discourse on the ethical guidance of scientific research.
In this comment, historian and sociologist Phillip Roth examines the history of how libraries classified physics preprints prior to the establishment of arXiv, highlighting how these early systems helped distinguish between insiders and outsiders in the scientific community.