Edward Gerjuoy: From Physics to Law and Back Again

Theoretical physicist Edward Gerjuoy discusses his family background, elementary and secondary education in Brooklyn, New York, undergraduate studies at City College, graduate work at the University of California at Berkeley, research during World War II, and subsequent career at the University of Southern California, New York University, the General Atomics Laboratory, the Radio Corporation of America, and the University of Pittsburgh, as well as his work as a lawyer and service as a judge on the Pennsylvania Environmental Hearing Board in Pittsburgh.     

Back and forth transfer and coherent coupling in a cold Rydberg dipole gas

Coupling by the resonant dipole-dipole energy transfer between cold cesium Rydberg atoms is investigated using time-resolved narrow-band deexcitation spectroscopy. This technique combines the advantage of efficient Rydberg excitation with high-resolution spectroscopy at variable interaction times. Dipole-dipole interaction is observed spectroscopically as avoided level crossing. The coherent character of the process is linked to back and forth transfer in the np + np <--> ns + (n + 1)s reaction. Decoherence in the ensemble has two different origins: the atom motion induced by dipole-dipole interaction and the migration of the s-Rydberg excitation in the environment of p-Rydberg atoms.     

Leibniz's Principle, Physics, and the Language of Physics

This paper is concerned with the problem of the validity of Leibniz's principle of the identity of indiscernibles in physics. After briefly surveying how the question is currently discussed in recent literature and which is the actual meaning of the principle for what concerns physics, we address the question of the physical validity of Leibniz's principle in terms of the existence of a sufficient number of naming predicates in the formal language of physics. This approach allows us to obtain in a formal way the result that a principle of the identity of indiscernibles can be justified in the domain of classical physics, while this is not the case in the domain of quantum physics.     

All-Fiber Waveguide Components: Physics, Technology, and Modelling

In this tutorial physics, technology, and modeling of three base technologies for realizing various branching components for a DWDM optical network would be presented.     

Toward physics of the mind: Concepts, emotions, consciousness, and symbols

Mathematical approaches to modeling the mind since the 1950s are reviewed, including artificial intelligence, pattern recognition, and neural networks. I analyze difficulties faced by these algorithms and neural networks and relate them to the fundamental inconsistency of logic discovered by Gödel. Mathematical discussions are related to those in neurobiology, psychology, cognitive science, and philosophy. Higher cognitive functions are reviewed including concepts, emotions, instincts, understanding, imagination, intuition, consciousness. Then, I describe a mathematical formulation, unifying the mind mechanisms in a psychologically and neuro-biologically plausible system. A mechanism of the knowledge instinct drives our understanding of the world and serves as a foundation for higher cognitive functions. This mechanism relates aesthetic emotions and perception of beauty to “everyday” functioning of the mind. The article reviews mechanisms of human symbolic ability. I touch on future directions: joint evolution of the mind, language, consciousness, and cultures; mechanisms of differentiation and synthesis; a manifold of aesthetic emotions in music and differentiated instinct for knowledge. I concentrate on elucidating the first principles; review aspects of the theory that have been proven in laboratory research, relationships between the mind and brain; discuss unsolved problems, and outline a number of theoretical predictions, which will have to be tested in future mathematical simulations and neuro-biological research.     

Process Physics: Inertia, Gravity and the Quantum

Process Physics models reality as self-organising relational or semantic information using a self-referentially limited neural network model. This generalises the traditional non-process syntactical modelling of reality by taking account of the limitations and characteristics of self-referential syntactical information systems, discovered by Gödel and Chaitin, and the analogies with the standard quantum formalism and its limitations. In process physics space and quantum physics are emergent and unified, and time is a distinct non-geometric process. Quantum phenomena are caused by fractal topologicaldefects embedded in and forming a growing three-dimensional fractal process-space. Various features of the emergent physics are briefly discussed including:quantum gravity, quantum field theory, limited causality and the Born quantum measurement metarule, inertia, time-dilation effects, gravity and the equivalence principle, a growing universe with a cosmological constant, black holes and event horizons, and the emergence of classicality.     

Pierre Duhem, the History and Philosophy of Physics, and the Teaching of Physics

The distinguished physicist and historian and philosopher of science Pierre Duhem (1861 - 1916) not only taught physics, but also worked out in his Aim and Structure of Physical Theory a philosophical analysis of physics. Duhem's analysis offers important suggestions about how physics progresses and also how physics should be taught. This essay suggests what advice Duhem would give persons involved in physics teaching about how physics should be presented. In particular, it discusses Duhem's insightful critique of what he called the Newtonian method.     

Fiber Optics: Physics and Technology,by Fedor Mitschke

This Conference, under the auspices of OEEC and the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics, was attended by more than a hundred delegates, representing some twenty-six nations. The Conference Chairman was Professor Sanborn C. Brown (U.S.A.), and the Conference Secretary Mr. Norman Clarke. The forty papers to be discused had been circulated to delegates well before the Conference, and the actual sessions were devoted to general discussions based on groups of papers which formed a unifying theme. Immediately after the close of the Conference, Prof. Brown and Mr. Clarke began the preparation of a full report of the proceedings, which will make a substantial volume. Among the general topics discussed were the place of physics in general education (opened by Mr. Clarke); the selection of university entrants for physics courses (Prof. G. K. T. Conn); examinations in physics (Dr. H. F. Boulind); the use of films and television in physics teaching (Dr. Harvey White, U.S.A.); and the Physical Science Study Committee's syllabus and programme (Prof. J. R. Zacharias, U.S.A.).     

Majorana: From Atomic and Molecular, to Nuclear Physics

In the centennial of Ettore Majorana’s birth (1906–1938?), we re-examine some aspects of his fundamental scientific production in atomic and molecular physics, including a not well known short communication. There, Majorana critically discusses Fermi’s solution of the celebrated Thomas–Fermi equation for electron screening in atoms and positive ions. We argue that some of Majorana’s seminal contributions in molecular physics already prelude to the idea of exchange interactions (or Heisenberg–Majorana forces) in his later works on theoretical nuclear physics. In all his papers, he tended to emphasize the symmetries at the basis of a physical problem, as well as the limitations, rather than the advantages, of the approximations of the method employed.     

Physics and logic: Thales

Thales's protophysics is reconstructed with the help of the Steiner quasigroup. A three-valued logic is proposed, equivalent to it. The discovered connection between physics and logic is used to discuss the natural form of the logic of quantum mechanics.     

Mathematical Physics,Analysis and Geometry

Mathematical Physics, Analysis and Geometry -     

Physics,and transistors in computers

The spectacular success of the transistor in making a steady stream of increasingly powerful and affordable digital computers available through the 50 years since its invention is well known. Yet in spite of this remarkable record the same fifty years has witnessed a continuing series of proposals for replacing the transistor in computing systems with some other device. The tunnel diode and Josephson devices are notable examples. Some of these proposals have attracted many millions of pounds of industry and government support. Yet none has had any effect on computing technology. The problem of the many alternatives is that they do not use quantitative standard signals to represent digits; in other words, they are not truly digital.