Concepts, Different Realities and Physics

 

 

We all live in different worlds. Some of us are engaged in the world of finance, administration and governance, others in the fine arts and literature. Still others are occupied in measurement and analysis in the world of science.

 

 

All these worlds have their own language and systems of values. Each is as real to its occupant as the other. We cannot deny that the world of fine arts and literature exists, but it is undeniably different from the physical world that scientists investigate. Is there a common ground?

 

 

The one thing we all have in common is that we can think. We use concepts to think. Concepts are the basic elements of thought, and we cannot think without concepts. But in practice we seldom accord concepts the importance they deserve, and dismiss them as the area of interest of thinkers and philosophers. Yet we can gain immensely and progress in leaps and bounds if we only paused a little to scrutinize our thinking and developed the concepts on which it depends.

 

 

The race to commercialise space is on. The power of free market/free lance thinking is being brought to bear. One entrepreneur has (arguably) gained the lead. He has thought just as critically and analytically as the others. But he has an advantage over others in his new way of thinking – the use of trial and error where scientific theory and modelling has not yet been perfected. He has decided to “push the envelope” as he puts it to gain advantage in reaching the moon and the planets first.

 

 

Such clear advantage in strategy can only come from thinking critically about the issue at hand. Elon Musk was not the first to do it. When Einstein was confronted with the problem of how to generalise the Special Theory of Relativity to a new General Theory, he turned to the known but unexplained fact of the equality of the gravitational and inertial masses, and observed that while others before him had only noted the equality, it was necessary to interpret the equivalence physically. The result was the initiation of the train of thought that led to the ultimate formulation of the General Theory of Relativity, which provides one of the two pillars of contemporary physics.

 

 

The original aim of the book, Concepts and the Foundations of Physics, was to demonstrate that a critical analysis of the concepts we use can lead to significant advances in the understanding of the worlds we live in. It puts this thesis to the test by visiting the ongoing conversation on the link between life, consciousness, and information through the mechanism of Maxwell’s Demon. It tries to push the envelope of physics by suggesting a new possible explanation for dark energy in terms of the older (less sexier) concepts.  It next reveals that while we live in different worlds, the different realities that we encounter have a common origin in the human entity. The chapter on the spectrum of reality shows how the human is not only in a position to influence the different realities, but actually determines them.

 

 

A large portion of the book is devoted to the analysis of the physical world, and an examination of the history and philosophy of physics. It elaborates on the link between experimental measurement and physical reality, using the postulate and discovery of the neutrino as a key example. It shows how critical analyses of the older concepts of physics result in clearer insights into the subject, and how the introduction of new concepts such as the Big Bang Theory dictates the introduction of the notion of a historical universe as compared to the static – infinite universe of Einstein and others. The book classifies the laws of physics into phenomenological, fundamental and historical theories, and points out that the introduction of the big bang theory may imply that the historical theories may become time-varying.

 

 

Symmetry has played a pivotal role in the development of physics. Its role in the development of particle physics is elucidated. The use of spontaneous symmetry breaking in the unification of the electromagnetic and weak forces serves as an important example of how concept analysis can be used as an important tool in the resolution of seemingly un-solvable problems.

 

 

Concepts and the Foundations of Physics is published by AIP Publishing, Melville, New York, and was released in October this year.

 

 

Citation: Anirudh Singh, Concepts and the Foundations of Physics [AIP Publishing (online),

 

 

Melville, New York, 2021], available at: https://doi.org/10.1063/9780735421929

 

 

Available at  https://aip.scitation.org/isbn/9780735421936

 

 

#concept_analysis       #different_worlds       #Elon_Musk    #Einstein #Maxwell’s_Demon #Dark_Energy                       #Symmetry      #Spontaneous_Symmetry_Breaking  #Big_Bang_Theory            #Historical_Universe