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Full-Text Articles in Physics
Why Ideas First Appear In Informal Form? Why It Is Very Difficult To Know Yourself? Fuzzy-Based Explanation, Miroslav Svitek, Vladik Kreinovich
Why Ideas First Appear In Informal Form? Why It Is Very Difficult To Know Yourself? Fuzzy-Based Explanation, Miroslav Svitek, Vladik Kreinovich
Departmental Technical Reports (CS)
To a lay person reading about history of physics, it may sound as if the progress of physics comes from geniuses whose inspiration leads them to precise equations that -- almost magically -- explain all the data: this is what Newton did with mechanics, this is what Schroedinger did with quantum physics, this is what Einstein did with gravitation. However, a deeper study of history of physics shows that in all these cases, these geniuses did not start from scratch -- they formalized ideas that first appeared in imprecise ("fuzzy") form. In this paper, we explain -- on the qualitative …
Can Physics Attain Its Goals: Extending D'Agostino's Analysis To 21st Century And Beyond, Olga Kosheleva, Vladik Kreinovich
Can Physics Attain Its Goals: Extending D'Agostino's Analysis To 21st Century And Beyond, Olga Kosheleva, Vladik Kreinovich
Departmental Technical Reports (CS)
In his 2000 seminal book, Silvo D'Agostino provided the detailed overview of the history of ideas underlying 19th and 20th century physics. Now that we are two decades into the 21st century, a natural question is: how can we extend his analysis to the 21st century physics -- and, if possible, beyond, to try to predict how physics will change? To perform this analysis, we go beyond an analysis of what happened and focus more on why para-digm changes happened in the history of physics. To better understand these paradigm changes, we analyze now only what were the main ideas …
Freedom Of Will, Physics, And Human Intelligence: An Idea, Miroslav Svitek, Vladik Kreinovich, Nguyen Hoang Phuong
Freedom Of Will, Physics, And Human Intelligence: An Idea, Miroslav Svitek, Vladik Kreinovich, Nguyen Hoang Phuong
Departmental Technical Reports (CS)
Among the main fundamental challenges related to physics and human intelligence are: How can we reconcile the free will with the deterministic character of physical equations? What is the physical meaning of extra spatial dimensions needed to make quantum physics consistent? and Why are we often smarter than brain-simulating neural networks? In this paper, we show that while each of these challenges is difficult to resolve on its own, it may be possible to resolve all three of them if we consider them together. The proposed possible solution is that human reasoning uses the extra spatial dimensions. This may sound …
Fuzzy Techniques, Laplace Indeterminacy Principle, And Maximum Entropy Approach Explain Lindy Effect And Help Avoid Meaningless Infinities In Physics, Julio C. Urenda, Sean R. Aguilar, Olga Kosheleva, Vladik Kreinovich
Fuzzy Techniques, Laplace Indeterminacy Principle, And Maximum Entropy Approach Explain Lindy Effect And Help Avoid Meaningless Infinities In Physics, Julio C. Urenda, Sean R. Aguilar, Olga Kosheleva, Vladik Kreinovich
Departmental Technical Reports (CS)
In many real-life situations, the only information that we have about some quantity S is a lower bound T ≤ S. In such a situation, what is a reasonable estimate for S? For example, we know that a company has survived for T years, and based on this information, we want to predict for how long it will continue surviving. At first glance, this is a type of a problem to which we can apply the usual fuzzy methodology -- but unfortunately, a straightforward use of this methodology leads to a counter-intuitive infinite estimate for S. There is an empirical …
Is Our World Becoming Less Quantum?, Lidice Castro, Vladik Kreinovich
Is Our World Becoming Less Quantum?, Lidice Castro, Vladik Kreinovich
Departmental Technical Reports (CS)
According to the general idea of quantization, all physical dependencies are only approximately deterministic, and all physical "constants" are actually varying. A natural conclusion -- that some physicists made -- is that Planck's constant (that determines the magnitude of quantum effects) can also vary. In this paper, we use another general physics idea -- the second law of thermodynamics -- to conclude that with time, this constant can only decrease. Thus, with time (we are talking cosmological scales, of course), our world is becoming less quantum.
Why Was Nicholson's Theory So Successful: An Explanation Of A Mysterious Episode In 20 Century Atomic Physics, Olga Kosheleva, Vladik Kreinovich
Why Was Nicholson's Theory So Successful: An Explanation Of A Mysterious Episode In 20 Century Atomic Physics, Olga Kosheleva, Vladik Kreinovich
Departmental Technical Reports (CS)
In the early 1910s, John Nicholson suggested that all atoms are formed by four basic elementary particles. This theory had a spectacular match with observations: it explained, with an unbelievable accuracy of 0.1, the atomic weights of all 92 elements known at that time. Specifically, it was shown that every atomic weight can be represented, with this accuracy, as an integer combination of four basic atomic weights. However, in a few years, this theory turned out to be completely wrong: atoms consist of protons, neutrons, and electrons, not of Nicholson's particles. This mysterious episode seems to contradict the usual development …
Need For Shift-Invariant Fractional Differentiation Explains The Appearance Of Complex Numbers In Physics, Olga Kosheleva, Vladik Kreinovich
Need For Shift-Invariant Fractional Differentiation Explains The Appearance Of Complex Numbers In Physics, Olga Kosheleva, Vladik Kreinovich
Departmental Technical Reports (CS)
Complex numbers are ubiquitous in physics, they lead to a natural description of different physical processes and to efficient algorithms for solving the corresponding problems. But why this seemingly counterintuitive mathematical construction is so natural here? In this paper, we provide a possible explanation of this phenomenon: namely, we show that complex numbers appear if take into account that some physical system are described by derivatives of fractional order and that a physically meaningful analysis of such derivatives naturally leads to complex numbers.
Why Physical Processes Are Smooth Or Almost Smooth: A Possible Physical Explanation Based On Intuitive Ideas Behind Energy Conservation, Olga Kosheleva, Vladik Kreinovich
Why Physical Processes Are Smooth Or Almost Smooth: A Possible Physical Explanation Based On Intuitive Ideas Behind Energy Conservation, Olga Kosheleva, Vladik Kreinovich
Departmental Technical Reports (CS)
While there are some non-smooth (and even discontinuous) processes in nature, most processes are smooth or almost smooth. This smoothness help estimate physical quantities, but a natural question is: why are physical processes smooth or almost smooth? Are there any fundamental reasons for this ubiquitous smoothness? In this paper, we provide a possible physical explanation for emirical smoothness: namely, we show that smoothness naturally follows from intuitive ideas behind energy conservation.
A Possible (Qualitative) Explanation Of The Hierarchy Problem In Theoretical Physics, Olga Kosheleva, Vladik Kreinovich
A Possible (Qualitative) Explanation Of The Hierarchy Problem In Theoretical Physics, Olga Kosheleva, Vladik Kreinovich
Departmental Technical Reports (CS)
One of the important open problem in theoretical physics is the hierarchy problem: how to explain that some physical constant are many orders of magnitude larger than others. In this paper, we provide a possible qualitative explanation for this phenomenon.
Why Strings, Why Quark Confinement: A Simple Qualitative Explanation, Olga Kosheleva, Vladik Kreinovich
Why Strings, Why Quark Confinement: A Simple Qualitative Explanation, Olga Kosheleva, Vladik Kreinovich
Departmental Technical Reports (CS)
In this pedagogical article, we recall the infinities problem of modern physics, and we show that the natural way to overcome this problem naturally leads to strings and to quark confinement.
Can We Preserve Physically Meaningful "Macro" Analyticity Without Requiring Physically Meaningless "Micro" Analyticity?, Olga Kosheleva, Vladik Kreinovich
Can We Preserve Physically Meaningful "Macro" Analyticity Without Requiring Physically Meaningless "Micro" Analyticity?, Olga Kosheleva, Vladik Kreinovich
Departmental Technical Reports (CS)
Physicists working on quantum field theory actively used "macro" analyticity -- e.g., that an integral of an analytical function over a large closed loop is 0 -- but they agree that "micro" analyticity -- the possibility to expand into Taylor series -- is not physically meaningful on the micro level. Many physicists prefer physical theories with physically meaningful mathematical foundations. So, a natural question is: can we preserve physically meaningful "macro" analyticity without requiring physically meaningless "micro" analyticity? In the 1970s, an attempt to do it was made by using constructive mathematics, in which only objects generated by algorithms are …
Need For Simplicity And Everything Is A Matter Of Degree: How Zadeh's Philosophy Is Related To Kolmogorov Complexity, Quantum Physics, And Deep Learning, Vladik Kreinovich, Olga Kosheleva, Andres Ortiz-Muñoz
Need For Simplicity And Everything Is A Matter Of Degree: How Zadeh's Philosophy Is Related To Kolmogorov Complexity, Quantum Physics, And Deep Learning, Vladik Kreinovich, Olga Kosheleva, Andres Ortiz-Muñoz
Departmental Technical Reports (CS)
Many people remember Lofti Zadeh's mantra -- that everything is a matter of degree. This was one of the main principles behind fuzzy logic. What is somewhat less remembered is that Zadeh also used another important principle -- that there is a need for simplicity. In this paper, we show that together, these two principles can generate the main ideas behind such various subjects as Kolmogorov complexity, quantum physics, and deep learning. We also show that these principles can help provide a better understanding of an important notion of space-time causality.
How To Reconcile Randomness With Physicists' Belief That Every Theory Is Approximate: Informal Knowledge Is Needed, Ricardo Alvarez, Nick Sims, Christian Servin, Martine Ceberio, Vladik Kreinovich
How To Reconcile Randomness With Physicists' Belief That Every Theory Is Approximate: Informal Knowledge Is Needed, Ricardo Alvarez, Nick Sims, Christian Servin, Martine Ceberio, Vladik Kreinovich
Departmental Technical Reports (CS)
In this paper, we show that physicists' intuition about randomness is not fully consistent with their belief that every theory is only approximate. We also prove that there is no formal way to reconcile these two intuitions, this reconciliation has to be informal. Thus, there are fundamental reasons why informal knowledge is needed for describing the real world.
If Space-Time Is Discrete, We May Be Able To Solve Np-Hard Problems In Polynomial Time, Ricardo Alvarez, Nick Sims, Christian Servin, Martine Ceberio, Vladik Kreinovich
If Space-Time Is Discrete, We May Be Able To Solve Np-Hard Problems In Polynomial Time, Ricardo Alvarez, Nick Sims, Christian Servin, Martine Ceberio, Vladik Kreinovich
Departmental Technical Reports (CS)
Traditional physics assumes that space and time are continuous. However, this reasonable model leads to some serious problems. One the approaches that physicists follow to solve these problems is to assume that the space-time is actually discrete. In this paper, we analyze possible computational consequences of this discreteness. It turns out that in a discrete space-time, we may be able to solve NP-hard problems in polynomial time.
Avoiding Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen (Epr) Paradox: Towards A More Physically Adequate Description Of A Quantum State, Joseph Bernal, Olga Kosheleva, Vladik Kreinovich
Avoiding Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen (Epr) Paradox: Towards A More Physically Adequate Description Of A Quantum State, Joseph Bernal, Olga Kosheleva, Vladik Kreinovich
Departmental Technical Reports (CS)
The famous EPR paradox shows that if we describe quantum particles in the usual way -- by their wave functions -- then we get the following seeming contradiction. If we entangle the states of the two particles, then move them far away from each other, and measure the state of the first particle, then the state of the second particle immediately changes -- which contradicts to special relativity, according to which such immediate-action-at-a-distance is not possible. It is known that, from the physical viewpoint, this is not a real paradox: if we measure any property of the second particle, the …
Neutron Lifetime Puzzle And Nuclear Stability: A Possible Relation, Olga Kosheleva, Vladik Kreinovich
Neutron Lifetime Puzzle And Nuclear Stability: A Possible Relation, Olga Kosheleva, Vladik Kreinovich
Departmental Technical Reports (CS)
It is known that a free neutron decays into a proton, an electron, and an anti-neutrino. Interesting, recent attempts to measure the neutron's lifetime has led to two slightly different estimates: namely, the number of decaying neutrons is somewhat larger than the number of newly created protons. This difference is known as the neutron lifetime puzzle. A natural explanation for this difference is that in some cases, a neutron decays not into a proton, but into some other particle. If this explanation is true, this implies that nuclei with a sufficiently large number of neutrons will be unstable. Based on …
Logarithms Are Not Infinity: A Rational Physics-Related Explanation Of The Mysterious Statement By Lev Landau, Francisco Zapata, Olga Kosheleva, Vladik Kreinovich
Logarithms Are Not Infinity: A Rational Physics-Related Explanation Of The Mysterious Statement By Lev Landau, Francisco Zapata, Olga Kosheleva, Vladik Kreinovich
Departmental Technical Reports (CS)
Nobel-prize winning physicist Lev Landau liked to emphasize that logarithms are not infinity -- meaning that from the physical viewpoint, logarithms of infinite values are not really infinite. Of course, from a literally mathematical viewpoint, this statement does not make sense: one can easily prove that logarithm of infinity is infinite. However, when a Nobel-prizing physicist makes a statement, you do not want to dismiss it, you want to interpret it. In this paper, we propose a possible physical explanation of this statement. Namely, in physics, nothing is really infinite: according to modern physics, even the Universe is finite in …
Physics's Need For Interval Uncertainty And How It Explains Why Physical Space Is (At Least) 3-Dimensional, Olga Kosheleva, Vladik Kreinovich
Physics's Need For Interval Uncertainty And How It Explains Why Physical Space Is (At Least) 3-Dimensional, Olga Kosheleva, Vladik Kreinovich
Departmental Technical Reports (CS)
One of the fundamental problems of modern physics is the problem of divergence: e.g., when we try to compute the overall energy of the electric field generated by a charged elementary particle, we get a physically meaningless infinite value. In this paper, we show that one way to avoid these infinities is to take into account that measurements are always imprecise -- and thus, we never get the exact values of the physical quantities, only intervals of possible values. We also show that 3-dimensional space is the simplest one in which such interval uncertainty is inevitable. This may explain why …
Can Mass Be Negative?, Vladik Kreinovich, Sergei Soloviev
Can Mass Be Negative?, Vladik Kreinovich, Sergei Soloviev
Departmental Technical Reports (CS)
Overcoming the force of gravity is an important part of space travel and a significant obstacle preventing many seemingly reasonable space travel schemes to become practical. Science fiction writers like to imagine materials that may help to make space travel easier. Negative mass -- supposedly causing anti-gravity -- is one of the popular ideas in this regard. But can mass be negative? In this paper, we show that negative masses are not possible -- their existence would enable us to create energy out of nothing, which contradicts to the energy conservation law.
Quantum Econometrics: How To Explain Its Quantitative Successes And How The Resulting Formulas Are Related To Scale Invariance, Entropy, Fuzzy, And Copulas, Hung T. Nguyen, Kittawit Autchariyapanitkul, Olga Kosheleva, Vladik Kreinovich, Songsak Sriboonchitta
Quantum Econometrics: How To Explain Its Quantitative Successes And How The Resulting Formulas Are Related To Scale Invariance, Entropy, Fuzzy, And Copulas, Hung T. Nguyen, Kittawit Autchariyapanitkul, Olga Kosheleva, Vladik Kreinovich, Songsak Sriboonchitta
Departmental Technical Reports (CS)
Many aspects of human behavior seem to be well-described by formulas of quantum physics. In this paper, we explain this phenomenon by showing that the corresponding quantum-looking formulas can be derived from the general ideas of scale invariance, fuzziness, and copulas. We also use these ideas to derive a general family of formulas that include non-quantum and quantum probabilities as particular cases -- formulas that may be more adequate for describing human behavior than purely non-quantum or purely quantum ones.
Does The Universe Really Expand Faster Than The Speed Of Light: Kinematic Analysis Based On Special Relativity And Copernican Principle, Reynaldo Martinez, Vladik Kreinovich
Does The Universe Really Expand Faster Than The Speed Of Light: Kinematic Analysis Based On Special Relativity And Copernican Principle, Reynaldo Martinez, Vladik Kreinovich
Departmental Technical Reports (CS)
In the first approximation, the Universe's expansion is described by the Hubble's law v = H * R, according to which the relative speed v of two objects in the expanding Universe grows linearly with the distance R between them. This law can be derived from the Copernican principle, according to which, cosmology-wise, there is no special location in the Universe, and thus, the expanding Universe should look the same from every starting point. The problem with the Hubble's formula is that for large distance, it leads to non-physical larger-than-speed-of-light velocities. Since the Universe's expansion is a consequence of Einstein's …
Why Some Physicists Are Excited About The Undecidability Of The Spectral Gap Problem And Why Should We, Vladik Kreinovich
Why Some Physicists Are Excited About The Undecidability Of The Spectral Gap Problem And Why Should We, Vladik Kreinovich
Departmental Technical Reports (CS)
Since Turing's time, many problems have been proven undecidable. It is interesting though that, arguably, none of the working physicist problems had been ever proven undecidable -- until T. Cubitt, D. Perez-Garcia and M. M. Wolf proved recently that, for a physically reasonable class of systems, no algorithm can decide whether a given system has a spectral gap. We explain the spectral gap problem, its importance for physics and possible consequences of this exciting new result.
Quantum Ideas In Economics Beyond Quantum Econometrics, Vladik Kreinovich, Hung T. Nguyen, Songsak Sriboonchitta
Quantum Ideas In Economics Beyond Quantum Econometrics, Vladik Kreinovich, Hung T. Nguyen, Songsak Sriboonchitta
Departmental Technical Reports (CS)
It is known that computational methods developed for solving equations of quantum physics can be successfully applied to solve economic problems; there is a whole related research area called quantum econometrics. Current quantum econometrics techniques are based on a purely mathematical similarity between the corresponding equations, without any attempt to relate the underlying ideas. We believe that the fact that quantum equations can be successfully applied in economics indicates that there is a deeper relation between these areas, beyond a mathematical similarity. In this paper, we show that there is indeed a deep relation between the main ideas of …
The Onsager Conjecture: A Pedagogical Explanation, Olga Kosheleva, Vladik Kreinovich
The Onsager Conjecture: A Pedagogical Explanation, Olga Kosheleva, Vladik Kreinovich
Departmental Technical Reports (CS)
In 1949, a Nobelist Lars Onsager considered liquid flows with velocities changing as rα for spatial points at distance r, and conjectured that the threshold value α = 1/3 separates the two possible regimes: for α > 1/3 energy is always preserved, while for α < 1/3 energy is possibly not preserved. In this paper, we provide a simple pedagogical explanation for this conjecture.
Why 3-D Space? Why 10-D Space? A Possible Simple Geometric Explanation, Vladik Kreinovich
Why 3-D Space? Why 10-D Space? A Possible Simple Geometric Explanation, Vladik Kreinovich
Departmental Technical Reports (CS)
In physics, the number of observed spatial dimensions (three) is usually taken as an empirical fact, without a deep theoretical explanation. In this paper, we provide a possible simple geometric explanation for the 3-D character of the proper space. We also provide a simple geometric explanation for the number of additional spatial dimensions that some physical theories use. Specifically, it is known that for some physical quantities, the 3-D space model with point-wise particles leads to meaningless infinities. To avoid these infinities, physicists have proposed that particles are more adequately described not as 0-D points, but rather as 1-D strings …
On Geometry Of Finsler Causality: For Convex Cones, There Is No Affine-Invariant Linear Order (Similar To Comparing Volumes), Olga Kosheleva, Vladik Kreinovich
On Geometry Of Finsler Causality: For Convex Cones, There Is No Affine-Invariant Linear Order (Similar To Comparing Volumes), Olga Kosheleva, Vladik Kreinovich
Departmental Technical Reports (CS)
Some physicists suggest that to more adequately describe the causal structure of space-time, it is necessary to go beyond the usual pseudo-Riemannian causality, to a more general Finsler causality. In this general case, the set of all the events which can be influenced by a given event is, locally, a generic convex cone, and not necessarily a pseudo-Reimannian-style quadratic cone. Since all current observations support pseudo-Riemannian causality, Finsler causality cones should be close to quadratic ones. It is therefore desirable to approximate a general convex cone by a quadratic one. This cane be done if we select a hyperplane, and …
What Is Computable? What Is Feasibly Computable? A Physicist's Viewpoint, Vladik Kreinovich, Olga Kosheleva
What Is Computable? What Is Feasibly Computable? A Physicist's Viewpoint, Vladik Kreinovich, Olga Kosheleva
Departmental Technical Reports (CS)
In this paper, we show how the questions of what is computable and what is feasibly computable can be viewed from the viewpoint of physics: what is computable within the current physics? what is computable if we assume -- as many physicists do -- that no final physical theory is possible? what is computable if we consider data processing, i.e., computations based on physical inputs? Our physics-based analysis of these questions leads to some unexpected answers, both positive and negative. For example, we show that under the no-physical-theory-is-perfect assumption, almost all problems are feasibly solvable -- but not all of …
Towards A Physics-Motivated Small-Velocities Approximation To General Relativity, Vladik Kreinovich, Olga Kosheleva
Towards A Physics-Motivated Small-Velocities Approximation To General Relativity, Vladik Kreinovich, Olga Kosheleva
Departmental Technical Reports (CS)
In the general case, complex non-linear partial differential equations of General Relativity are very hard to solve. Thus, to solve the corresponding physical problems, usually appropriate approximations are used. The first approximation to General Relativity is, of course, Newton's theory of gravitation. Newton's theory is applicable when the gravitational field is weak and when all velocities are much smaller than the speed of light. Most existing approximations allow higher velocities, but still limit us to weak gravitational fields. In this paper, he consider the possibility of a different approximation, in which strong fields are allowed but velocities are required to …
We Live In The Best Of Possible Worlds: Leibniz's Insight Helps To Derive Equations Of Modern Physics, Vladik Kreinovich, Guoqing Liu
We Live In The Best Of Possible Worlds: Leibniz's Insight Helps To Derive Equations Of Modern Physics, Vladik Kreinovich, Guoqing Liu
Departmental Technical Reports (CS)
To reconcile the notion of a benevolent and powerful God with the actual human suffering, Leibniz proposed the idea idea that while our world is not perfect, it is the best of possible worlds. This idea inspired important developments in physics: namely, it turned out that equations of motions and equations which describe the dynamics of physical fields can be deduced from the condition that the (appropriately defined) action functional is optimal. In practice, this idea is not always very helpful in physics applications: to fully utilize this fact, we need to how the action, and there are many possible …
Analysis Of Random Metric Spaces Explains Emergence Phenomenon And Suggests Discreteness Of Physical Space, Olga Kosheleva, Vladik Kreinovich
Analysis Of Random Metric Spaces Explains Emergence Phenomenon And Suggests Discreteness Of Physical Space, Olga Kosheleva, Vladik Kreinovich
Departmental Technical Reports (CS)
In many practical situations, systems follow the pattern set by the second law of thermodynamics: they evolve from an organized inhomogeneous state into a homogeneous structure-free state. In many other practical situations, however, we observe the opposite emergence phenomenon: in an originally homogeneous structure-free state, an inhomogeneous structure spontaneously appears. In this paper, we show that the analysis of random metric spaces provides a possible explanation for this phenomenon. We also show that a similar analysis supports space-time models in which proper space is discrete.