Theoretical Mechanics Lecture in WS 2016/17 at the KFU Graz

Boston Studies in Philosphy and History of Science, 2007

There were two philosophical breakthroughs that were made during the first decades of the 17th century. One was in the theory of knowledge, or epistemology, which was initiated by Francis Bacon. Another breakthrough was made by Galileo Galilei, in the subject of being and becoming, or of metaphysics. What we call science today appears to me to be the fruit of those two remarkable philosophical breakthroughs. I present a case for this claim.

2001

It is well known that classical mechanics consists of several basic features like determinism, reductionism, completeness of knowledge and mechanism. In this article the basic assumptions which underlie those features are discussed. It is shown that these basic assumptions -though universally assumed up to the beginning of the 20th century -are far from obvious. Finally it is shown that -to a certain extent -there is nothing wrong in assuming these basic postulates. Rather, the error lies in the epistemological absolutization of the theory, which was considered as a mirroring of Nature.

2013

Considering the manner in which many students are introduced to some of the accepted pillars of perceived scientific wisdom, it seems appropriate, in view of recent developments associated with the theories of both Special and General Relativity, to look at the present basis for this accepted educational approach.

In this presentation, I will summarize the present status of the developments with a Universal Theory of Relativity . Some general challenges to be overcome will also be discussed.

Advances in Quantum Chemistry, 2008

Quo Vadis Quantum Mechanics?, 2005

2014

Journal of physics, 2022

Since it started about three centuries ago, theoretical physics went through a huge advancement and, particularly in the last century, the development was material. Its application to engineering brought a massive revolution in the way we humanity live now. Its interpretation opened up astoundingly deep understanding of our universe. One important research activity for the future is to further develop our theories and to further deepen our understanding of the universe. However, as Tomonaga said, when we are in a phase of looking for new paradigm, it is important to understand how our current theory was developed. The purpose of this paper is to present a logical and historic study of the conceptual development of theoretical physics. As the field of theoretical physics is so vast, we cannot cover all theories we have now. We will focus on the most fundamental theories of physics. As this field of physics is as deep and intricate as pure mathematics, if not more, it will be helpful to compare our challenge with that pure mathematicians are facing in the field of the foundations of mathematics. Such common ground will inevitably lead us to deeper philosophical issues. After all what we call physics started with Newton who developed both calculus and dynamics. He called it not physics but natural philosophy. So, it is naturally expected that philosophy, mathematics and theoretical physics develop hand in hand. It has been about a century since these fields started to develop separately and it is about time to restart the original interaction between these three intrinsic intellectual activities. Certainly this will help our timely search for a new paradigm. We must move forward.

Philosophia, 2019

The contemporary scientific and technological progress builds on the accomplishments of classical mechanics from the 19th century when the so-called 'European scientific method and values' were accepted practically by the whole educated world. Most scientific results and conclusions were reached based on the causal ontological approach proposed in principle already by Plato's Socrates and developed further by Aristotle. Despite the late-modern paradigm shift in science (Galilei, Newton, etc.), the topicality of the ontological approach proposed by Aristotle (II. Analytics) remains. On the other hand, 19th and 20th century philosophers, mainly positivists such as Mach and Avenarius but also Schlick and Carnap, attempted to change this approach to unify scientific knowledge in accordance with an ideological, i.e. positivist outlook on reality. The authors place a special emphasis on the contribution of Rudolf Carnap and his interaction with Martin Heidegger. Three very different theories are applied to physical reality in the present: classical mechanics in the standard macroscopic realm, Copenhagen quantum mechanics in the microscopic realm, and special theory of reality in both realms in the case of systems consisting of objects having higher velocity values. Any explanation or description of transitions between different realms and theories had not been provided until now. Our paper describes the corresponding evolution in the modern period and identifies the underlying false philosophical assumptions and statements existing in today's scientific systems. We will then demonstrate that one common theory for all realms of reality may exist; one that will be based fully on Hamilton equations (only the law of force of Newton is to be generalized). Only time change of particle impulse (not directly acceleration) is to be determined by a corresponding force. All necessary characteristics of physical reality may be derived in such a case. Direct correlations of such physical approach to philosophy (ontology) will be drawn.