The Physical Concept of Time

Keyword(s):  
Author(s):  
Ursula Renz

This chapter discusses the implications of Spinoza’s concept of individual bodies, as introduced in the definition of individuum in the physical digression. It begins by showing that this definition allows for an extremely wide application of the term; accordingly, very different sorts of physical entities can be described as Spinozistic individuals. Given the quite distinct use of the terms divisibilis and indivisibilis in his metaphysics, however, the chapter argues that the physical concept of individuality is not universally applied in the Ethics but reserved for physical or natural-philosophical considerations. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the problem of collective individuals. It is argued that, while societies or states are described as individual bodies, they do not constitute individual group minds in the strict sense of the term for Spinoza. This in turn indicates that minds are not individuated in the same way as bodies.


2005 ◽  
Vol 52 (7) ◽  
pp. 77-84 ◽  
Author(s):  
L.F. Melo

The paper proposes tortuosity as a physical concept particularly useful to interpret internal diffusivities in terms of biofilm structure. Results from different authors are presented showing how average effective diffusivities in biofilms (measured with inert tracers) vary with the fluid velocity: in the case of biofilms formed under turbulent flow conditions, an increase in fluid velocity corresponds to a decrease in the diffusivity, although sometimes this decrease is very slight; however, in laminar flow situations, no common trend is found from research group to research group.


Author(s):  
Shuyao Zhou ◽  
Tianqian Zhu ◽  
Kanle Shi ◽  
Yazi Li ◽  
Wen Zheng ◽  
...  

AbstractLight fields are vector functions that map the geometry of light rays to the corresponding plenoptic attributes. They describe the holographic information of scenes by representing the amount of light flowing in every direction through every point in space. The physical concept of light fields was first proposed in 1936, and light fields are becoming increasingly important in the field of computer graphics, especially with the fast growth of computing capacity as well as network bandwidth. In this article, light field imaging is reviewed from the following aspects with an emphasis on the achievements of the past five years: (1) depth estimation, (2) content editing, (3) image quality, (4) scene reconstruction and view synthesis, and (5) industrial products because the technologies of lights fields also intersect with industrial applications. State-of-the-art research has focused on light field acquisition, manipulation, and display. In addition, the research has extended from the laboratory to industry. According to these achievements and challenges, in the near future, the applications of light fields could offer more portability, accessibility, compatibility, and ability to visualize the world.


2010 ◽  
Vol 19 (10) ◽  
pp. 995-1012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nikos Emmanouil Kanderakis
Keyword(s):  

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