Schrodinger’s Narratives: Denis Diderot’s and Laurence Sterne’s Manipulations of Time and Space

This article proposes connections between literature and science through the relatively recent scientific concept of chaos. I examine Laurence Sterne’s The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman and Denis Diderot’s Jacques the Fatalist and His Master to show how these authors contradict the scientific thinkers of their time by creating narrative structures that disrupt the normal flow of time and bend the typically absolute space between reader and fictional story. Though the physical books of Jacques and Tristram Shandy have a final page, the two authors leave it to their readers to finish the stories for themselves. The narrators of both novels interact with their readers, creating a space that allows their audience to fill in the narrator’s and author's blanks. In doing this, these texts become simultaneously complete and incomplete. Thus, a narrative styled similarly to the thought experiment of Schrodinger's cat is created. In this sense these novels can be perceived as precursors to scientific thought of the twentieth and twenty-first century.

Complex Behavior in the Dynamics of a Polymeric Biocomposite Material—“Liquid Wood”. Experimental and Theoretical Aspects

The purpose of the present paper is to analyze, both experimentally and theoretically, the behavior of the polymeric biocomposite generically known as “liquid wood”, trademarked as Arbofill. The experimental part refers to the mechanical performance in tension and compression, having as finality the possibility of using “liquid wood” as a material suitable for the rehabilitation of degraded wooden elements in civil structures (ex. use in historical buildings, monuments etc.,). The theoretical part refers to computer simulations regarding the mechanical behavior of “liquid wood” as well as to a theoretical model in the paradigm of motion, which describes the same behavior. This model is based on the hypothesis that “liquid wood” can be assimilated, both structurally and functionally, to a multifractal object, situation in which its entities are described through continuous, non-differentiable curves. Then, descriptions of the behavior of “liquid wood”, both in the Schrödinger-type and in hydrodynamic-type representations at various scale resolutions, become operational. Since in the hydrodynamic-type representation, the constitutive law of “liquid wood” can be highlighted, several operational procedures (Ricatti-type gauge, differential geometry in absolute space etc.,) will allow correlations between the present proposed model and the experimental data. The obtained results, both practical (81% bearing capacity in compression and 36% bearing capacity in tension, compared to control samples) and theoretical (validation of material performance in virtual environment simulations, stresses and strains correlations in a theoretical model) indicate that “liquid wood” could be used in the construction industry, as a potential rehabilitation material, but with more development clearly needed.

Locke, Leibniz and the State Space

The chapter explores the relationship between Locke and Leibniz's account of space and how this impacts on their understanding of possibility, and particularly practical choices between possibilities within a modal space. Using Borges' short story 'Pierre Menard, author of the Quixote' it argues that Locke's acquiescence to absolute space severly restricts his account of the power to do things. Leibniz's retention of relative space permits a much richer account of possible, yet he binds these worlds together under a universal set of principles which are morally true in every possible world. He calls these morally impossible (prohibited), echoing the Scholastic language of repugnance. 'Menard' is employed to critique this resort to universality, before an alternative possible truth structure is sketched as a response to the 'self-evident' truths defended by Leibniz.

The Beginning of General Relativity

In this article, we briefly review the motivations behind general relativity. We first discuss the basics of classical physics, including the equations of motion and the field equations. Newtonian mechanics assumes absolute space and time, but this can be philosophically unnatural. Einstein constructed a general theory of classical physics with covariance for the general choice of coordinate systems. This theory is known as general relativity. Finally, we briefly mention how this theory is completed, how this theory is verified, and what can be the future of general relativity.

The theory on thing's limits. Part 2: A brief analysis of the new knowledge of Newton's first law

According to the norm of identifying truth in this theory, and Newton's first law which is a basis that can look at the overall situation. By virtue of the electron storage ring as an experimental fact, it is pointed out: Only in reality can there be inertia, and vice versa. Inertia represents the continuity of the development of thing. As the speed gradually approaches to the c, the particle's mass also approaches to zero along with its static mass, which is the energy shrinkage effect of high-speed particles, and also the primary factor causing the spectrum redshift. Therefore, the Big Bang theory is wrong. All photons are produced from the high-density particles through electromagnetic radiations. Wherever there is fluctuation, there must be mass, and vice versa. This is the correct understanding of "wave-particle duality". No matter the high-speed electrons or the photons produced by them all have different static masses, but their charge-mass ratio is always the same physical constant, and not affected by relativistic effects and electromagnetic radiations. Which constitutes the internal mechanism of the uncertainty principle and conforms to the experimental facts related to it. It can be proved that in a constant magnetic field, the high-speed electron or photon with a relatively large curvature radius, which has a high moving speed and less mass, energy and wave frequency. Since Einstein used the absolute space-time established by Newton as the criterion and came to the conclusion that relative space-time was curved, then he should no longer make circular arguments, that was, used the relative space-time as the criterion, to change the unit length and time established by the absolute space-time.

The Space-evolution Frame as Alternative to Space-time

As an alternative to Minkowski spacetime frame, this paper propose a four-dimensional Euclidean space that combines three spatial dimension with proper time instead of time. We call it space-evolution, in which proper time is interpreted as evolutionary position, time is considered as world line length and is absolute. Space-evolution frame provide a new perspective for our understanding of time, space and special relativity. The new frame is self-consistent without losing compatibility to special relativity, the Lorentz transform and its predictions could be derived geometrically by simple coordinate rotation

2. Motion and inertia

This chapter explores the question of what it means for something to move, and why physics cannot be done without an answer to that question. It does so mostly in the context of Newtonian physics, leaving considerations of the theory of relativity to the next chapter. We cannot simply define motion of one body as relative to another body if we want to do physics—we have to introduce the idea of a ‘rest frame’ that defines which bodies are at rest (Newton called this rest frame ‘absolute space’). But physics also satisfies the relativity principle—it is impossible to distinguish the rest frame from another frame moving at constant speed in that frame. So what physics really requires is not a preferred rest frame, but a family of inertial frames, all moving at uniform speeds relative to one another. The notion of ‘spacetime’ has been introduced as a way of understanding this family of inertial frames, but philosophers of physics disagree as to whether spacetime explains the nature of motion in physics, or merely codifies it. The chapter concludes by explaining how gravity can be thought of as a change in the structure of the inertial frames: though it was Einstein who first saw this clearly, it has nothing to do with relativity and makes sense even in Newtonian physics.

Investigating Total Collisions of the Newtonian N-Body Problem on Shape Space

We analyze the points of total collision of the Newtonian gravitational system on shape space (the relational configuration space of the system). While the Newtonian equations of motion, formulated with respect to absolute space and time, are singular at the point of total collision due to the singularity of the Newton potential at that point, this need not be the case on shape space where absolute scale doesn’t exist. We investigate whether, adopting a relational description of the system, the shape degrees of freedom, which are merely angles and their conjugate momenta, can be evolved through the points of total collision. Unfortunately, this is not the case. Even without scale, the equations of motion are singular at the points of total collision (and only there). This follows from the special behavior of the shape momenta. While this behavior induces the singularity, it at the same time provides a purely shape-dynamical description of total collisions. By help of this, we are able to discern total-collision solutions from non-collision solutions on shape space, that is, without reference to (external) scale. We can further use the shape-dynamical description to show that total-collision solutions form a set of measure zero among all solutions.