Overview
Physics, philosophy of
The philosophy of physics forms a central discipline of the philosophy of science, which itself can claim to be central to metaphysics and epistemology (see Science, philosophy of). ...
Search Results 1 - 25 of 52. Results contain 283 matches
Thematic
Action at a distance
Action at a distance is typically characterized in terms of some cause producing a spatially separated effect in the absence of any medium by which the causal interaction ...
Thematic
Bell’s theorem
Bell’s theorem is concerned with the outcomes of a special type of ‘correlation experiment’ in quantum mechanics. It shows that under certain conditions these outcomes would be restricted ...
Thematic
Chaos theory
Chaos theory is the name given to the scientific investigation of mathematically simple systems that exhibit complex and unpredictable behaviour. Since the 1970s these systems have been used ...
Thematic
Conservation principles
In antiquity ‘self-evident’ principles were used to argue for the conservation of certain quantities. The concept of quantitative conservation laws, such as those of mass and energy, is ...
Thematic
Cosmology
The term ’cosmology’ has three main uses. At its most general, it designates a worldview, for example, the Mayan cosmology. In the early eighteenth century, shortly after the ...
Thematic
Determinism and indeterminism
Over the centuries, the doctrine of determinism has been understood, and assessed, in different ways. Since the seventeenth century, it has been commonly understood as the doctrine that ...
Thematic
Determinism and indeterminism
REVISED
Over the centuries, the doctrine of determinism has been understood, and assessed, in different ways. Since the seventeenth century, it has been commonly understood as the doctrine that ...
Thematic
Electrodynamics
Electric charges interact via the electric and magnetic fields they produce. Electrodynamics is the study of the laws governing these interactions. The phenomena of electricity and of magnetism ...
Thematic
Emergence in physics
The concept of emergence is closely connected with the notions of antireductionism, unpredictability, and novelty. In many cases these latter concepts are explicated in mereological terms: very crudely, ...
Thematic
Field theory, classical
A physical quantity (such as mass, temperature or electrical strength) appears as a field if it is distributed continuously and variably throughout a region. In distinction to ...
Thematic
Field theory, quantum
Quantum field theory extends the basic ideas of quantum mechanics for a fixed, finite number of particles to systems comprising fields and an unlimited, indefinite number of particles, ...
Thematic
General relativity, philosophical responses to
Much of the early philosophical attention given Einstein’s theory of gravitation was not uncontaminated by a grim post-war atmosphere conducive to public diversions, hysteria and national chauvinism. Most ...
Thematic
Laws, natural
It is widely supposed that science aims to identify ’natural laws’. But what are laws of nature? How, if at all, do statements of laws differ from ’mere’ ...
Thematic
Matter
Viewed as arising within the framework of a more general theory of substance, philosophical treatments of matter have traditionally revolved around two issues: (1) The nature of ...
Thematic
Measurement, theory of
A conceptual analysis of measurement can properly begin by formulating the two fundamental problems of any measurement procedure. The first problem is that of representation, justifying the assignment ...
Thematic
Mechanics, Aristotelian
The central feature of Aristotle’s mechanics is his discussion of local motion, a change of place, which he categorizes as either natural or violent. He further divides natural ...
Thematic
Mechanics, classical
Understood at its most general, ‘classical mechanics’ covers the approach to physical phenomena that dominated science from roughly the time of Galileo until the early decades of the ...
Thematic
Models in physics
In its most common use, the term ‘model’ refers to a simplified and stylised version of the so-called target system, the part or aspect of the world that ...
Thematic
Motion
Motion is a kind of change, so it is worth beginning with change generally. Change is puzzling because it requires something both to remain the same (so one ...
Thematic
Oxford Calculators
‘Oxford Calculators’ is a modern label for a group of thinkers at Oxford in the mid-fourteenth century, whose approach to problems was noticed in the immediately succeeding centuries ...
Thematic
Quantum logic
The topic of quantum logic was introduced by Birkhoff and von Neumann (1936), who described the formal properties of a certain algebraic system associated with quantum theory. To ...
Thematic
Quantum measurement problem
In classical mechanics a measurement process can be represented, in principle, as an interaction between two systems, a measuring instrument M and a measured system S, ...
Thematic
Quantum mechanics, interpretation of
Quantum mechanics developed in the early part of the twentieth century in response to the discovery that energy is quantized, that is, comes in discrete units. At the ...
Thematic
Relativity theory, philosophical significance of
There are two parts to Albert Einstein’s relativity theory, the special theory published in 1905 and the general theory published in its final mathematical form in 1915. The ...