Texts, articles and reviews with the label: 'Physics'.
Recent
Science, reason and faith in Blaise Pascal
summaryPascal was a genius, sincere and constant search engine of the truth. He was passionate about the scientific novelties of his time. He had a deep religious conversion, which he wanted to transmit and which resulted in The Thoughts. His vindication of "the reasons of the heart" is classic.
Author: Juan Luis Lorda
Towards a description of complexity (physics)
summaryThe concept of physical complexity is elusive. Some formalizations have been achieved, which are only valid for some specific cases of complexity. Several phenomena and the common notes that allow them to be classified as physically complex are presented.
Author: Diego Maza
Neuroscience and quantum mechanics
summaryThe relationship between quantum mechanics and neuroscience is discussed. Models that attempt the connection between brain activity and conscious experience by means of quantum mechanics are presented. And the need for an interdisciplinary approach to the problem is clarified.
Author: Javier Sánchez Cañizares
Physics and awe in the face of nature
summaryReflection on the role of astonishment in the face of nature as a bridge between the physicist's work and philosophical reflection on the natural world, which has in physics a description of the world from which to start.
Author: Javier Sánchez Cañizares
Interview with Javier Sánchez Cañizares on Lemaître and the Big Bang
summaryBasic explanation of the physical model of the Big Bang, origin of the Big Bang model by Lemaître from the physical observations of the time. Projection of the future of the physical universe (big crunch, thermal death). It raises the origin of the universe and the arrow of time.
Author: Javier Sánchez-Cañizares.
Too much science gives back to God
summaryThe advances in physics lead many to believe that an ontological explanation of reality is not necessary. The testimony of the physicists who carried out these advances sample that only a scientifically poor vision leads to this conclusion.
Author: Ignacio Sols.
Frontiers between physics, metaphysics and theology
summaryThe advance of science narrows the field of faith explanations. Even if the boundaries between scientific and faith explanation yield to science, new questions can be seen behind the latest scientific explanations, which can only be answered from metaphysics or from faith.
Author: Grzegorz P. Karwasz.
The model Standard for Elementary Particles
summarysummary and presentation of seminar of group Science, Reason and Faith. It explains the current knowledge of the intimate constitution of the subject and of the elementary particles and their peculiarities, and raises its explanatory problems.
Author: Luis Joaquín Boya Balet
summary: Detailed description of the Big Bang finding in the first two thirds of the 20th century, the discussion of Einstein's cosmological constant and Lemaître's later discoveries, and explanation of the lack of incompatibility of this model with the doctrine of creation.
Origin of the Universe: New Perspectives
summary: Explanation of the evolution of model of the Universe we have had from the end of the 19th century to the present day, and discussion of the causes of the crises that made the successive modifications necessary.
Author: Javier Burguete
What is determinism in physics?
summary summary of the main positions that have been taken historically on determinism and indeterminism: within Aristotelian causality, within the Newtonian approach to the laws of nature, and within the formalist interpretation of the principle of indeterminacy and the physics of chaos, with some concluding reflections on the interpretation of science.
Author: Santiago Collado, Héctor Velázquez
Is quantum mechanics relevant to the scientific understanding of the mind-brain problem?
summaryBrief summary of the quantum models that attempt to explain consciousness, the purely physical determinants of this explanation, and a conclusive vision of quantum mechanics within the mind-brain problem.
Author: Javier Sánchez-Cañizares
summaryDistinction between the natural causes of phenomena, which are explained by science (with its method that raises hypotheses and validates them little by little), and the ultimate cause of everything, which can only be studied by philosophy and theology. The idea of self-creation is criticised.
Author: Javier Sánchez Cañizares
Is everything subject? Is materialism the only possible interpretation?
summary: Study of the problems posed by the concept of subject: initial insufficiency due to circularity in the definition, extension of its study to philosophy, description of the materialist and spiritualist monisms, and recognition of the duality of material and non-material facets of reality.
Author: Santiago Collado
summaryArticle published in the journal Palabra (August-September 2012, p. 6) which explains in non-technical language the nature of elementary particles, the finding of the Higgs boson and clarifies the origin of the expression 'the God particle'.
Author: Javier Sánchez Cañizares
summary summary of the scientific discoveries about the universe, from the first Greek theories to the big-bang, and exposition of the Christian doctrine about creation in a detailed way, so that it can be seen that they do not oppose each other.
Author: Carlos Pérez and Héctor L. Mancini
summaryNASA's WMAP probe has obtained a detailed image of the early universe, at 380,000 years old. This makes it possible to better explain how the present cosmos was formed from the Big Bang and reinforces the importance of subject and dark energy. And it does not provide a pre-Big Bang origin.
Author: Carlos A. Marmelada
E. Mach and P. Duhem: The Philosophical Significance of the History of Science
summaryErnst Mach (1838-1916) and Pierre Duhem (1861-1916) can be considered as parallel figures. Both lived at the same time, died in the same year, were prominent physicists, conducted research on the history of science, and related that work to their ideas on the philosophy of science. As if this were not enough, both asserted that scientific theories are neither true nor false. It is not surprising, therefore, that their names are commonly associated in the epistemological literature and that they are presented as prominent representatives of conventionalism. However, there are important differences between them. Mach's ideas are closely related to an evolutionary and empiricist perspective, where science represents a useful tool for survival and there is no place for metaphysics; Mach's influence was naturally prolonged in the neo-positivism of the Vienna Circle. In contrast, Duhem harmonised his epistemology with a realist philosophical perspective, emphasised in his historical research the importance of Christianity in the birth of modern science, and affirmed the coherence between science, philosophy and Christianity.
Author: Mariano Artigas
Emergence and reduction in morphogenetic theories
summaryThe origin of the universe and of man are the limit cases of the evolutionary worldview, whose main task consists in the formulation of morphogenetic theories explaining how new levels emerge from more basic ones. In this context, the problems of emergence and reduction occupy a central place. The following reflections first allude to the difficulties of classical analyses of reductionism and suggest that the problem of reduction finds its proper place within the analysis of relations between levels. These considerations are applied, secondly, to the examination of certain morphogenetic theories. And they are also applied, finally, to the problem of ontological emergence, including the evaluation of some proposals about the origin of the universe and of man.
Author: Mariano Artigas
Entropy and cosmology: Is our universe special?
summary sample : The crucial role of the gravitational force and black holes in the growth of the entropy of the universe is discussed. Some estimates of this magnitude are given and the fundamental problem in the scientific understanding of the universe, which is not usually addressed by current theories, is highlighted.
Author: Javier Sánchez Cañizares
The scientific search for order: miracles without an author?
summaryArticle that examines the recent discoveries in self-organisation processes of the subject, and discovers its philosophical and teleological aspect, very different from the merely materialistic one that is usually given to it. (Unpublished article from 1991).
Author: Mariano Artigas
Quantum cosmology and the origin of the universe. Physics and creation
summaryCommentary on the article Cosmología cuántica y creación del universo, published by Jonathan J. Halliwell in Investigación y Ciencia (nº 185, February 1992, pp. 12-20), in which he clarifies the concept of self-creation of the subject held by some current physicists.
Author: Mariano Artigas
The laws of nature and the immanence of God in the evolving universe
summaryIn this article, after critically studying some new models of God's intervention in nature at the microcosmic level, I attempt to defend the thesis that God's immanence in nature is expressed in cosmic order and evolutionary novelty. Among many physical forms of manifestation of divine immanence we must note in particular: 1. the very existence of the laws of nature in an otherwise lawless disordered world; 2. the emergence of new attributes that constituted the realm of pure possibilities at earlier stages of the evolution of the cosmos; 3. the emergence of new attributes that constituted the realm of pure possibilities at earlier stages of the evolution of the cosmos.
Author: Msgr. Józef Zycinski
The divine and the human in Stephen Hawking's universe
summaryCommentary on the work Francisco J. Soler Gil. The divine and the human in Stephen Hawking's universe: clarifies the philosophical questions present in Hawking's theses, their implications for natural theology, and his concept of time.
Author: Carlos A. Marmelada
Nicolas Oresme, Grand Master of the high school of Navarre, and the origin of modern science
summaryThe high school of Navarre in its first hundred years, the foundation of the high school of Navarre, the high school of Navarre and the University of Paris, the political, ecclesiastical and intellectual environment, the beginnings: Jean de Jandun, the time of Oresme, a new era: d'Ailly, Gerson, Clamanges, overall assessment. Oresme and the physical school of Paris, science in the 14th century: Oxford, the approaches of the physical school of Paris, Jean Buridan and his disciples, Nicolas Oresme, Oresme's scientific contributions, mathematics, the geometrical representation of qualities, the law of accelerated motion, the fall of the Graves, the theory of impetus, cosmology, science and astrology, economics, the scientific method, Oresme's place in the history of science.
Author: Mariano Artigas
Author: Enrique Moros
summaryThe article explains the usual confusion between evolution and Darwinism, the position of the creationism, and the errors of the Intelligent Design solution to conciliate these arguments.
Author: Stephen M. Barr
Time Reborn. From the Crisis in Physics to the Future of the Universe
summary: Review of Smolin Lee, Time Reborn. From the Crisis in Physics to the Future of the Universe. The work reviews physical theories and relates them to a philosophical reflection on the validity of science.
Author: Javier Sánchez Cañizares