Photon concept (03/19/2008)
... Planck was the first to introduce quantization, but he did not go so far as to say that light is quantized. He thought of emission in packets, but not that light could exist only in such packets. His hypothesis was on the nature of the process of emission, not on the nature of the radiated light. It seems a small step, but it is precisely this type of step that is so difficult to make. It is interesting to quote here the recommendation made by Planck and others when nominating Einstein for the Prussian Academy in 1913: “In summary, one can say that there is hardly one among the great problems in which modern physics is so rich to which Einstein has not made a remarkable contribution....

Antiparticles (03/19/2008)
... That particles and antiparticles may react with each other quite violently is true, but there are many other (violent) reactions that do not particularly differ in principle from electron-positron reactions. For example, at very high energies two protons colliding with each other produces something quite similar to proton– antiproton collisions. The importance of the concept of antiparticles follows from a law of nature: to each particle there corresponds an antiparticle that has precisely the same mass, and whose other properties are exactly defined with respect to those of the particle. For example, the electric charge has the opposite sign. The law mentioned allows for the possibility that the antiparticle corresponding to a particle be the particle itself....

Mass and Energy (03/19/2008)
... The considerations above refer to vehicles moving on earth, but they are more generally valid. To bring a car to a speed of 50 km/h on the moon or on Mars would require the same amount of energy as on earth. The mass of a car, element in the calculation, has nothing to do with gravitation. Nonetheless mass is usually measured by means of weighing the object. Since the weight of an object is proportional to its mass that works fine as long as this measurement is always done on the same planet....

Conservation of Energy and Charge (03/19/2008)
... Let us turn once more to neutron decay. The neutron has a mass of 939.57 MeV and it decays into a proton, an electron and an antineutrino: neutron -> proton + electron + antineutrino The proton has a mass of 938.27 MeV, the electron 0.511 MeV and the antineutrino mass is very small or zero....

Forces and Interactions (03/19/2008)
... That was a long process, and it evolved from the idea of objects exerting force upon each other into the concept of a field. The latter, due to Faraday, was a major change. The field has an independent existence. It contains energy. To create a field (for example a magnetic field by sending a current through a wire) requires energy....

What Are Scientific Controversies (03/10/2008)
... Thus, in front of a problem or puzzle that dumbly resists its resolution with the means at hand, those conducting the inquiry have to resort to some strategy of their own design for coping with the situation. In some occasions, different such strategies may seem to different scientists as worth pursuing. Now, each such strategy is an inquiry in its own right, involving its own set of background “assumptions.” Background “assumptions” derive, as I implied above, from the positions in the widest possible sense (social, professional, ideological, etc.) of the scientists implicated....

Chaos Theory and Uncertainty (03/06/2008)
... This does not mean that the science of meteorology is divergent. It means that it does not converge on a singularity, rather it converges on an approximation—a value with a measure of uncertainty. The principle of uncertainty has been known in physics for some time, having been postulated by the nuclear physicist Hiesenberg. The science of physics learned to live with uncertainty. The Theory of Constraints teaches the business systems methodologist how to live with uncertainty in other fields, such as production, project management, and enterprise resource planning....

Why Scientific Controversies Exist (03/06/2008)
... Sensible experiences, clear and distinct ideas, phenomena, observations, impressions, and sense data, or later, protocol sentences, basic statements, and Konstatierungen, were for them reliable building blocks provided by nature to any fair observer. They were not so naive as to not recognize that these blocks are affected by the ways the human mind perceives the world. Francis Bacon, for example, knew that observations could be “idol-laden,” and Galileo did criticize the prejudices of the Aristotelians that, having been “imbibed with mother’s milk,” affected sense perception. However, they were confident that idols, prejudices, expectations, and the like could be expurgated and the mind left in a state to see clearly and think rationally. This is the main reason why they thought that controversies can be settled easily and completely....

Kinds of Scientific Controversies (03/04/2008)
... To help come to grips with the deeper aspects of the cognitive dimension of science, surface controversies are not as probative, or as consequential, as those belonging to the following two categories, for, concerning precisely the cognitive level, controversies of this kind are quasi-immediately resolved after the new scientific result has been established. However, for understanding the social dimensions of the scientific endeavor, their significance is decisive: resolution at the cognitive level does not necessarily entail immediate resolution at the social level. Differences in participation and preference “assumptions” cannot be telling, in the sense of giving rise to scientific controversies in their own right, unless the “assumptions” lying “deeper” in the background are shared. Accordingly, they will not concern us further in developing this classification. The second kind of scientific controversy comprises those in which the parties implicated share the constitutive “assumptions” involved in the inquiry but not all the relevant interpretative “assumptions....

Phases of Scientific Development (02/22/2008)
... Phase 2—Correlation Correlation is Goldratt's term for the phase in which corroborating evidence is available to show that a method works in practice. Correlation is a phase of pattern recognition. The science of astronomy, when it was still known as astrology, spent thousands of years in the correlation stage. It was possible for astrologers to predict astrological events such as the turning of the year, the rise of the planets in the sky, and so forth by pattern matching against observations of recurring patterns. It could be argued that the science of Object Oriented Analysis has reached the correlation stage....