Physics

Physics was my first love. This category contains the posts closest to my heart. Twenty years from now, if this blog survives, this category will probably hold my most enduring insights. And two hundred years from now, if I am remembered at all, it will be for these insights; not for the kind of person I am, the money I make, nor anything else. Only for my first and last love…

Debates, SFN - Science Forums, Philosophy, Physics

The Big Bang Theory – Part II

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This post is a continuation of my earlier musings on the Big Bang theory. This one looks at the foundational assumptions of quantum gravity. In management speak, it is a high level overview, which sounds like I understand it. In a physicist’s lingo, it is merely a layman description or a hand-waving argument. In other words, the management types out there may like it better than the smart ones. You be the judge!

Columns, The Wilmott Magazine, Physics, Quantitative Finance

Chaos and Uncertainty

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This article appeared in the Wilmott Magazine in Jan 2009, and talks not quite about the chaos and uncertainty of the last few months in finance industry can be summarized in two words. It is more about the physics concepts bearing the same names, and how they can be applied to the turmoil in the financial and economic world.

Philosophy, Physics, Science

Why the Speed of Light?

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Another post in the latest blitz of physics/philosophy articles, this one presents an idea that the significance of the speed of light a la Special Relativity is a consequence of our perception rather than an assumption.

Physics

The Big Bang Theory

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People present the Big Bang theory in physics pretty much like Evolution in biology. But I feel that it is disingenuous to do that. To me, it looks as though the Big Bang theory is so full of patchwork, such a mathematical collage to cook up something that is consistent with GR that it is hard to imagine that it corresponds to anything real. Here is a short list of my trouble with the theory.

Philosophy, Physics, Articles and Essays, Creative

Constraints of Perception and Cognition in Relativistic Physics

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This post is an abridged online version of my article that appears in Galilean Electrodynamics in November, 2008. [Ref: Galilean Electrodynamics, Vol. 19, No. 6, Nov/Dec 2008, pp: 103–117]
It can be viewed as a good summary of my book, The Unreal Universe, with all the gory mathematical details. Originally written for a professional audience, this post may interest my physicist friends, especially those with a philosophical openness in their beliefs.

Pages: 1 2
Unpublished, Philosophy, Physics, Articles and Essays

The Unreal Universe — Seeing Light in Science and Spirituality

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This essay, originally written for a Singaporean newspaper The Straits Times, was published in an altered form in a philosophy magazine called The Philosopher. The published article (also posted in this blog — Perception, Physics and the Role of Light in Philosophy) had too much editorial input, I felt.

We know that our universe is a bit unreal. The stars we see in the night sky, for instance, are not really there. They may have moved or even died by the time we get to see them. […]

Philosophy, Physics

Uncertainly Principle

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One of the few features in physics that have captured the public attention, the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle figures way up there with the Big Bang and E=mc2. It is an independent axiom, standing on its own, not reducible to any other more fundamental principles. However, here is an Unreal attempt to derive it.

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