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This classic work in the philosophy of physical science is an incisive and readable account of the scientific method. Pierre Duhem was one of the great figures in French science, a devoted teacher, and a distinguished scholar of the history and philosophy of science. This book represents his most mature thought on a wide range of topics.
Nobel Laureate discusses quantum theory, uncertainty, wave mechanics, work of Dirac, Schroedinger, Compton, Einstein, others. "An authoritative statement of Heisenberg's views on this aspect of the quantum theory." — Nature.
The essays in this volume were written by leading researchers on classical mechanics, statistical mechanics, quantum theory, and relativity. They detail central topics in the foundations of physics, including the role of symmetry principles in classical and quantum physics, Einstein's hole argument in general relativity, quantum mechanics and special relativity, quantum correlations, quantum logic, and quantum probability and information.
This book is the first complete and comprehensive description of the modern Physical Theory of Diffraction (PTD) based on the concept of elementary edge waves (EEWs). The theory is demonstrated with the example of the diffraction of acoustic and electromagnetic waves at perfectly reflecting objects. The derived analytic expressions clearly explain the physical structure of the scattered field and describe in detail all of the reflected and diffracted rays and beams, as well as the fields in the vicinity of caustics and foci. Shadow radiation, a new fundamental component of the field, is introduced and proven to contain half of the total scattered power.
Professor Bondi discusses some of the myths that have grown up around various scientific theories and ideas, particularly special relativity and Mach's principle. His critical - and often light-hearted - approach to what are usually regarded as complicated ideas leaves the reader with the feeling that perhaps much of his subject is common sense after all. Professor Bondi's aim is to provoke thought, rather than to provide all the answers. He first discusses the limits of theory-making, the significance of depth and universality and the devising of effective tests for scientific theories. The relation of Einstein's theory to classical Newtonian mechanics is then considered, the author showing that relativity can be regarded simple as an extension of Newton's ideas on dynamics to the whole of physics. After deriving the equations of special relativity by the so-called k-calculus, he disposes rapidly of the 'clock paradox' and moves on to discuss general relativity, the significance of the result of Newman and Penrose concerning gravitational waves, the sources of gravitation and inertia, Mach's principles and the Hoyle-Narlikar relativity theory.
In this highly readable book, H.S. Green, a former student of Max Born and well known as an author in physics and in the philosophy of science, presents a timely analysis of theoretical physics and related fundamental problems.
This book deals with some of the current issues in the philosophy, methodology and foundations of physics. Some such problems are: - Do mathematical formalisms interpret themselves or is it necessary to adjoin them interpretation assumptions, and if so how are these as sumptions to be framed? - What are physical theories about: physical systems or laboratory operations or both or neither? - How are the basic concepts of a theory to be introduced: by ref erence to measurements or by explicit definition or axiomatically? - What is the use ofaxiomatics in physics? - How are the various physical theories inter-related: like Chinese boxes or in more complex ways? - What is the role of analogy in the construction and in the inter pretation of physical theories? In particular, are classical analogues like those of particle and wave indispensable in quantum theories? - What is the role of the apparatus in quantum phenomena and what is the place of measurement theory in quantum mechanics? - How does a theory face experiment: single-handed or with the help of further theories? These and several other questions of the kind are met with by the research physicist, the physics teacher and the physics student in their everyday work. If dodged they will recur. And a wrong answer to them may obscure the understanding of what has been achieved and may even hamper further advancement. Philosophy, methodology and foundations, like rose bushes, are enjoyable when cultivated but become ugly and thorny when neglected.
Undergraduates in engineering and the physical sciences receive a thorough introduction to perturbation theory in this useful and accessible text. Students discover methods for obtaining an approximate solution of a mathematical problem by exploiting the presence of a small, dimensionless parameter — the smaller the parameter, the more accurate the approximate solution. Knowledge of perturbation theory offers a twofold benefit: approximate solutions often reveal the exact solution's essential dependence on specified parameters; also, some problems resistant to numerical solutions may yield to perturbation methods. In fact, numerical and perturbation methods can be combined in a complementary way. The text opens with a well-defined treatment of finding the roots of polynomials whose coefficients contain a small parameter. Proceeding to differential equations, the authors explain many techniques for handling perturbations that reorder the equations or involve an unbounded independent variable. Two disparate practical problems that can be solved efficiently with perturbation methods conclude the volume. Written in an informal style that moves from specific examples to general principles, this elementary text emphasizes the "why" along with the "how"; prerequisites include a knowledge of one-variable calculus and ordinary differential equations. This newly revised second edition features an additional appendix concerning the approximate evaluation of integrals.
According to a view assumed by many scientists and philosophers of science and standardly found in science textbooks, it is controlled ex perience which provides the basis for distinguishing between acceptable and unacceptable theories in science: acceptable theories are those which can pass empirical tests. It has often been thought that a certain sort of test is particularly significant: 'crucial experiments' provide supporting empiri cal evidence for one theory while providing conclusive evidence against another. However, in 1906 Pierre Duhem argued that the falsification of a theory is necessarily ambiguous and therefore that there are no crucial experiments; one can never be sure that it is a given theory rather than auxiliary or background hypotheses which experiment has falsified. w. V. Quine has concurred in this judgment, arguing that "our statements about the external world face the tribunal of sense experience not indi vidually but only as a corporate body". Some philosophers have thought that the Duhem-Quine thesis gra tuitously raises perplexities. Others see it as doubly significant; these philosophers think that it provides a base for criticism of the foundational view of knowledge which has dominated much of western thought since Descartes, and they think that it opens the door to a new and fruitful way to conceive of scientific progress in particular and of the nature and growth of knowledge in general.