Neoclassical Physics

In this introductory text, physics concepts are introduced as a means of understanding experimental observations, not as a sequential list of facts to be memorized. The book is structured around the key scientific discoveries that led to much of our current understanding of the universe. Numerous exercises are provided that utilize Mathematica software to help students explore how the language of mathematics is used to describe physical phenomena. Topics requiring quantum mechanics for a more complete explanation are identified but not pursued. In a departure from the traditional methodology and subject matter used in introductory physics texts, this is organized in a manner that will facilitate a guided discovery style of instruction. Students will obtain much more detailed information about fewer topics and will also gain proficiency with Mathematica, a powerful tool with many potential uses in subsequent courses.

There is an uncanny resemblance between Christianity in the middle ages and Physics in the twenty-first century. Formerly, the common man could neither read nor understand the scriptures, as they were written in Latin; the clergy had to interpret the scriptures for the laity with predictable results. Physics in the twenty-first century is similar. Only mathematicians with doctoral degree can understand the universe and how it works, to the rest of mankind the universe is an area of darkness. This is not by any means a desirable development. As human beings, we are all sentient individuals and as such are expected to enquire about our environment, the world around us, and the universe we live in. On a fundamental philosophical basis, it is wrong to believe that such knowledge, whether by circumstance or by design, is limited to a privileged few. This book explains the universe for the first time in a way that is comprehensible to everyone. Neo-classical physics undertakes the study of the behaviour of the universe as an entity, and the physics of sub-atomic particles is easy to understand in everyday terms. Neo-classical physics is the language that sets you free – free to see, free to comprehend and free to wonder anew.

In this monograph, the authors present their recently developed theory of electromagnetic interactions. This neoclassical approach extends the classical electromagnetic theory down to atomic scales and allows the explanation of various non-classical phenomena in the same framework. While the classical Maxwell–Lorentz electromagnetism theory succeeds in describing the physical reality at macroscopic scales, it struggles at atomic scales. Here, quantum mechanics traditionally takes over to describe non-classical phenomena such as the hydrogen spectrum and de Broglie waves. By means of modifying the classical theory, the approach presented here is able to consistently explain quantum-mechanical effects, and while similar to quantum mechanics in some respects, this neoclassical theory also differs markedly from it. In particular, the newly developed framework omits probabilistic interpretations of the wave function and features a new fundamental spatial scale which, at the size of the free electron, is much larger than the classical electron radius and is relevant to plasmonics and emission physics. This book will appeal to researchers interested in advanced aspects of electromagnetic theory. Treating the classical approach in detail, including non-relativistic aspects and the Lagrangian framework, and comparing the neoclassical theory with quantum mechanics and the de Broglie–Bohm theory, this work is completely self-contained.

It is a pleasure to write a foreword for Professor Tore Wessel-Berg's book, "Electromagnetic and Quantum Measurements: A Bitemporal Neoclassical Theory." This book appeals to me for several reasons. The most important is that, in this book, Wessel-Berg breaks from the pack. The distinguished astrophysicist Thomas Gold has written about the pressures on scientists to move in tight formation, to avoid having their legs nipped by the sheepdogs of science. This book demonstrates that Wessel-Berg is willing to take that risk. I confess that I do not sufficiently understand this book to be able to either agree or disagree with its thesis. Nevertheless, Wessel-Berg makes very cogent arguments for setting out on his journey. The basic equations of physics are indeed time-reversible. Our experience, that leads us to the concept of an "arrow of time," is derived from macro scopic phenomena, not from fundamental microscopic phenomena. For this reason, it makes very good sense to explore the consequences of treating microscopic phenomena on the assumption that forward time and backward time are equal.

Published in 1989, Philip Mirowski's More Heat Than Light: Economics as Social Physics, Physic's as Nature's Economics offered a challenge to historians of economics that could not be ignored. Neo-classical economics, he said, adopted certain analytical tools of mid-nineteenth-century physics, simply substituting "utility" for "energy," and in so doing, chose a natural-world model which denied that economic knowledge might be essentially social and cultural. The essays in this collection represent the first collective effort to respond to Mirowski's challenge by examining and assessing the Mirowski enterprise. In addition to questioning the veracity of the connection between physics and economics, the contributors consider the far-reaching implications of Mirowski's thesis for the history of economics. Mirowski shows that economic texts must be viewed in their relation to texts outside the field of economics and offers an alternative reading of economic texts as social and cultural inscriptions. As historians of economics respond to Mirowski's challenge, the style and direction of their work will be changed. Utlimately, a careful assessment of More Heat Than Light may introduce historians of economics to recognize that the "discipline" of economics may not be the most appropriate category from which to proceed. Contributors. Jack Birner, Marcel Boumans, A. W. Coats, Avi J. Cohen, I. Bernard Cohen, Neil de Marchi, Steve Fuller, Clifford G. Gaddy, Wade Hands, Albert Jolink, Arjo Klamer, Robert Leonard, Philip Mirowski, Theodore M. Porter, Margaret Schabas, E. Roy Weintraub

More Heat Than Light is a history of how physics has drawn some inspiration from economics and also how economics has sought to emulate physics, especially with regard to the theory of value. It traces the development of the energy concept in Western physics and its subsequent effect upon the invention and promulgation of neoclassical economics. Any discussion of the standing of economics as a science must include the historical symbiosis between the two disciplines. Starting with the philosopher Emile Meyerson's discussion of the relationship between notions of invariance and causality in the history of science, the book surveys the history of conservation principles in the Western discussion of motion. Recourse to the metaphors of the economy are frequent in physics, and the concepts of value, motion, and body reinforced each other throughout the development of both disciplines, especially with regard to practices of mathematical formalisation. However, in economics subsequent misuse of conservation principles led to serious blunders in the mathematical formalisation of economic theory. The book attempts to provide the reader with sufficient background in the history of physics in order to appreciate its theses. The discussion is technically detailed and complex, and familiarity with calculus is required.

This undergraduate textbook discusses the nature of the microscopic universe from a modern perspective, based on Einstein's notions of relativity and Noether's proof of the emergence of conservation laws from symmetries of the equations of motion. These ideas drove the development of the Standard Model of particle physics and subsequent attempts to define a unified (string) theory. The second half of the book explores various aspects of many-body physics, ranging from chemical systems to plasmas to black holes. Like the previous textbook authored by by Mark Cunningham, Neoclassical Physics, this text uses a guided discovery approach of instruction, highlighting the experimental results that drove development of our modern picture of subatomic physics. Many problems utilize Mathematica® software to enable students to explore the meaning of different equations in a graphical manner. Students will gain an appreciation of the current state of physical theory, in preparation for more detailed, advanced study as upperclassmen.

'...the history of economic theory at its best.'-EASTERN ECONOMIC JOURNAL