scholarly journals Entropy and Eschatology: A Comment on Kutrovátz's Paper "Heat Death in Ancient and Modern Thermodynamics"

2002 ◽  
Vol 09 (03) ◽  
pp. 291-299
Author(s):  
Milan M. Ćirković
Keyword(s):  
History Of Science ◽  
Anthropic Principle ◽  
Philosophical Tradition ◽  
Alternative Route ◽  
Future Evolution ◽  
Modern Times ◽  
Self Selection ◽  
History Of ◽  
Heat Death ◽  
The Universe

Recent intriguing discussion of heat death by Kutrovátz is critically examined. It is shown that there exists another way of answering the heat death puzzle, already present in the ancient philosophical tradition. This alternative route relies not only on the final duration of time (which has been re-discovered in modern times), but also on the notion of observational self-selection, which has received wide publicity in the last several decades under the title of the anthropic principle(s). We comment here on some further deficiencies of the account of Kutrovátz. Although the questions Kutrovátz raises are important and welcome, there are several errors in his treatment of cosmology which mar his account of the entire topic. In addition, the nascent discipline of physical eschatology holds promise of answering the basic explanatory task concerning the future evolution of the universe without appealing to metaphysics. This is a completely novel feature in the history of science, in contradistinction to the historical examples discussed by Kutrovátz.

The Emergence of Time: Kant, Bergson, and Modern Physics

KronoScope ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 96-111
Author(s):  
Christophe Bouton
Keyword(s):  
History Of Science ◽  
Big Bang ◽  
History Of Philosophy ◽  
Human Being ◽  
Modern Physics ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Big Bang ◽  
The Universe

Abstract This paper deals with the problem of the emergence of time in three different ways, at the intersection of the history of philosophy and the history of science: 1) the emergence of time with subjectivity examined on the basis of Kant’s idealism; 2) the emergence of time with life, considered in the light of the work of Bergson; 3) the emergence of time with the Universe, in relation to the notions of ‘The Big Bang’ and ‘The Planck Wall’. It concludes that the idea of the emergence of time is inconsistent in a diachronic sense, and problematic in a synchronic sense. One meaning could, however, be accorded to this notion: with life, a new relation to time has emerged and has attained one of its most developed forms with the human being.

scholarly journals The alienist: madness, science and parody

2015 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 157
Author(s):  
Dino Del Pino
Keyword(s):  
Social Control ◽  
History Of Science ◽  
19Th Century ◽  
Modern Times ◽  
History Of ◽  
The 19Th Century

The explanation of Simão Bacamarte’s personal and public dimensions introduces the diegetic scenario that aims to highlight the part played by madness as a pretext for social control. After recuperating the conditions to which senseless people submitted to in modern times, especially in France, we point to the hubris as relevant in the field of science, exemplifying it by using the intertextual link between The Alienist and Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. During the conclusion, we aimed to show – after drawing a brief parallel between Simão and Brás Cubas – that Simão represents a parody of “the scientist”, a character that took shape with the evolution of the history of science and which was given unprecedented value after the 19th century.

scholarly journals TIME SCALES FOR ACHIEVING ASTRONOMICAL CONSENSUS

2008 ◽  
Vol 17 (06) ◽  
pp. 831-856
Author(s):  
VIRGINIA TRIMBLE
Keyword(s):  
Solar System ◽  
History Of Science ◽  
Time Scales ◽  
21St Century ◽  
Present Discussion ◽  
Original Idea ◽  
Long Time ◽  
History Of ◽  
Important Idea ◽  
The Universe

The history of science can be recounted in many ways: by addressing the work of one person or school; by starting with the ancients and working chronologically up to the present; by focusing on a particular century; or by tracing a particular important idea as far back and forward as it can be found. The present discussion does none of these. Rather, it adopts the ordering of a standard introductory astronomy textbook, from the solar system via stars and galaxies, to the universe as a whole, and in each regime picks out a few issues that were controversial or wrongly decided for a long time. For each, I attempt to identify a duration of the period of uncertainty or error and some of the causes of the confusion. This is surely not an original idea, though I am not aware of having encountered it elsewhere, and it is not one that is likely to appeal to most 21st century historians of science, for whom the question "Who first got it right?" is not necessarily an important, or even appropriate, one. Some of the stories have been told as historical introductions to conferences and are here summarized and brought up to date. Others I had not previously addressed.

KUHN AND PHILOSOPHY

2012 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 77-88 ◽  
Author(s):  
MICHAEL FRIEDMAN
Keyword(s):  
History Of Science ◽  
Nature Of Science ◽  
Philosophy Of Language ◽  
Logical Positivism ◽  
Philosophical Tradition ◽  
Teaching Philosophy ◽  
New Model ◽  
Accumulation Model ◽  
History Of

Initially trained as a physicist, Kuhn became a leading and extraordinarily influential figure in the history of science. He saw his work in the history of science as contributing to a novel philosophical conception of the nature of science. At the outset of Structure, for example, Kuhn announces his intention to replace the “development-by-accumulation” model he associates with the philosophical tradition before him—including, in particular, what he calls “early logical positivism”—with a new model of radical conceptual discontinuity or incommensurability. Structure was written during Kuhn's tenure teaching philosophy and history of science at Berkeley, and, shortly after its publication, he took up a new post as professor of philosophy and history of science at Princeton. From 1983 until his death in 1996 Kuhn was professor of philosophy at MIT, where he attempted further to articulate his conception of incommensurability, taking account of developments in linguistics and philosophy of language.

On Pierre Duhem

1987 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 357-361 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. J. Gurevich
Keyword(s):  
History Of Science ◽  
Great Contribution ◽  
Medieval Science ◽  
Considerable Portion ◽  
History Of ◽  
Great Scholar ◽  
Pierre Duhem ◽  
Excellent Source ◽  
Source Of Information ◽  
The Universe

Duhem's great contribution to the study of the history of medieval science is indisputable. His book remains an excellent source of information concerning the ideas of the epoch's thinkers about the foundations of the universe. Ariew's painstaking translation of a considerable portion of Duhem's ten-volume work deserves the deep gratitude of all those interested in medieval science. Le Systéme du monde regains its actuality. Nevertheless, to write now about a book produced by this great scholar at the beginning of the century is not an easy undertaking, and involves some risk. Too many changes have taken place in the principles of studying the history of science during the seventy-odd years since the book was written, and some notions that seemed then to be perfectly clear are not so simple and indisputable now. With profound respect for this feat of scholarship, I should like to make some observations in connection with the recent English publication of Duhem's book.

On the status of the astronomy and physics in Maimonides' Mishneh Torah and Guide of the Perplexed: a chapter in the history of science

1991 ◽  
Vol 24 (4) ◽  
pp. 453-463 ◽  
Author(s):  
Menachem Kellner
Keyword(s):  
History Of Science ◽  
Nature Of Science ◽  
Scientific Progress ◽  
True Nature ◽  
New Models ◽  
The Status ◽  
History Of ◽  
Guide Of The Perplexed ◽  
The Universe

An interesting question arises in the context of the typically medieval description of the universe presented at the beginning of Maimonides' (1138–1204) great law code, the Mishneh Torah. What was Maimonides' own attitude towards that account? Was it meant only as a statement of the best description of nature available at the time (and thus radically distinct from the halakhic (i.e. Jewish legal) matters which make up the bulk of the Mishneh Torah) or was it meant to be a description of the true nature of the universe as it really is, not subject to revision in the light of new paradigms or new models (and thus essentially similar to the halakhic matters in the text)? Answering this question will lead us to a better understanding of Maimonides' understanding of the nature of science and of what I shall call, for lack of a better term, scientific progress. Maimonides will be shown to hold that while sublunar science can reach perfection and completion such is not possible for superlunar science and that to the extent that the scientific matters in the Mishneh Torah deal with the latter they could not have been presented as the final description of the universe as it truly is.

The Ultimate Speculation

Speculation ◽  
2018 ◽  
pp. 216-261
Author(s):  
Peter Achinstein
Keyword(s):  
History Of Science ◽  
The World ◽  
Theory Of Everything ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Universe

Some scientists and philosophers claim that a “Theory of Everything” (TOE) exists and that scientists should find it. Such a theory will explain everything on the basis of fundamental laws and fundamental constituents of the universe to which everything else is reducible. This chapter clarifies what a TOE is supposed to be and do, and examines arguments in favor of the idea that there is a TOE and it should be found. These arguments involve claims from the history of science, claims about what science presupposes, claims about unification in science, and others. In response, this chapter shows not only that these arguments fail to establish their claims, but also that they fail to establish the desirability of a TOE. Contrary to what TOE enthusiasts insist, the intelligibility of the world does not depend on finding a TOE and using it to explain what scientists want and need to explain. Intelligibility is a local and contextual matter.

scholarly journals A preliminary study about gravitational wave radiation and cosmic heat death

2021 ◽  
Vol 502 (2) ◽  
pp. 2787-2792
Author(s):  
Jianming Zhang ◽  
Qiyue Qian ◽  
Yiqing Guo ◽  
Xin Wang ◽  
Xiao-Dong Li
Keyword(s):  
Dark Matter ◽  
Time Scale ◽  
Mechanical Energy ◽  
Wave Radiation ◽  
Future Evolution ◽  
Black Hole Accretion ◽  
Mechanical Energy Dissipation ◽  
Heat Death ◽  
The Universe

ABSTRACT We study the role of gravitational waves (GW) in the heat death of the Universe. Due to the GW emission, in a very long period, dynamical systems in the universe suffer from persistent mechanical energy dissipation, evolving to a state of universal rest and death. With N-body simulations, we adopt a simple yet representative scheme to calculate the energy loss due to the GW emission. For current dark matter systems with mass ∼1012−1015 M⊙, we estimate their GW emission time-scale as ∼1019−1025 yr. This time-scale is significantly larger than any baryon processes in the Universe, but still ∼1080 times shorter than that of the Hawking radiation. We stress that our analysis could be invalid due to many unknowns such as the dynamical chaos, the quadrupole momentum of haloes, the angular momentum loss, the dynamic friction, the central black hole accretion, the dark matter decays or annihilations, the property of dark energy, and the future evolution of the Universe.

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