Eclipse, Prediction, and the Modern Meaning of Causality — Part III
THE LUNAR ECLIPSE: As discussed in Part — II, Aristotle proposed FOUR kinds of cause behind the occurrence of a natural process — Material, Formal (Formative), Efficient and Final. To explain how these causes operate, examples of the ‘production of a bronze statue’ and the ‘growth of a plant’ were provided. One of the questions, […]
Aristotle’s Four Causes and the Growth of Explanation — Part I
Aristotle, Statue and Tree: Today, almost twenty-four centuries after, it is really amazing to know how the ancient physicists and philosophers thought about the causal-connectedness of things happening in nature in such a systematic and structured manner! The pre-eminent example is the Aristotelian framework of causality. According to Aristotle, the causes behind the occurrence of […]
From Local Realism to Causality — Part I
In the ‘Butterflies’ articles and also, in the ‘Coffee Mug’ articles many things were discussed. Let’s take a quick recap: In the first pair of articles (Butterflies… — Parts I & II) the Aristotelian [absolute Time, absolute Space] and the Galilean [absolute Time, relative Space] ideas on the structure of spacetime were briefly discussed. The […]
The Coffee Mug, Light, and Local Reality — Part II
In Part — I it was mentioned that accepting the tenet of ‘realism’ means believing in the existence of things ‘from their own side’ independent of consciousness. By briefly discussing the Newtonian idea of ‘gravitational influence distant objects have on each other’, it was pointed out that Einstein regarded such an action-at-a-distance as ‘spooky’ — […]
The Coffee Mug and the Meaning of Realism — Part I
Your morning begins with some funny thoughts coming in your mind: you enter in the kitchen and take a look at a few things…the oven, the kettle, the dish-washer, the refrigerator, your favorite coffee mug…and you notice something: Whether I decide to have a look at those things or not, they are ‘just there’ at […]
Butterflies, Motion, and the Relativity of Space — Part II
…The untiring flying of those butterflies — indifferent to the motion of the ship — pointed out a profound truth: Galileo said — “being in the cabin and looking at those butterflies, you can’t tell whether the ship is at rest (un-moving) or is moving with a fixed speed in a given direction!” What’s so […]
Butterflies, Motion, and the Relativity of Space — Part I
Galileo Galilei described an interesting situation, which possibly helped him develop his idea of spacetime. In brief, abbreviated (and slightly modified) form it goes something like this: “Imagine you are in the main cabin below decks on some large ship, and having with you some butterflies (in a bottle)…Let the ship proceed with any speed, […]
From the Known to the Unknown
Stockholm, Sweden… December 1965…Three Physicists are being awarded with the Nobel Prize: “for their fundamental work in quantum electrodynamics, with deep-ploughing consequences for the physics of elementary particles”. One of them is Richard Feynman… In his Nobel speech, Feynman worries about ‘people following fashions in thinking & research’. What he said at that time is […]
How Questions Lead to ParadigmsReality and the Limits of a Model
René Magritte (1898-1967) was a Belgian ‘surrealistic’ artist, whose paintings often stimulated feeling of surprise, required careful consideration and often challenged the viewers’ contradictory notions about reality.One of the many thought-provoking visual artworks by Magritte is his famous painting of a (smoker’s) ‘pipe’ — with a caption: ‘this is not a pipe’. It makes you […]
How Questions Lead to Paradigms
You are visiting a garden…full of coastal plants & herbs…with several, short-distance tree-lined walkways…it’s a bit windy weather…not too sunny, not too cloudy…just pleasant… You are amazed by the diversity — differences in the shades of colours — leaves and flowers, their shapes, foliages… Walking through the garden and leaving it behind, you arrive at […]
