Philosophy Dictionary of ArgumentsHome
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| Constants, philosophy, logic: constants are conditions which do not change, in contrast to processes, states, and also natural objects, e.g. aging. An aging human being remains constantly the same person, but not the same body. For a constant, e.g. a name for an object is given. Letters of logic are given for individual constants (a, b, c ...), but also for individual variables (x, y, z ...). Variables are not changing objects, but a new object may be used instead of a variable, e.g. 4 instead of 5. These two numbers, however, are not changing objects, but have a constant value._____________Annotation: The above characterizations of concepts are neither definitions nor exhausting presentations of problems related to them. Instead, they are intended to give a short introduction to the contributions below. – Lexicon of Arguments. | |||
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Hennig Genz on Constants - Dictionary of Arguments
II 327 Units/unit/laws of nature/constants/natural constants/quantum mechanics/Relativity Theory/Genz: the basic units for length, mass and time appear in the natural laws of quantum mechanics and relativity theory only covertly as natural constants: c, gravitational constant G, Planck's constant h. >Natural constants. Together they can be converted into a length, a mass and a time and provide when not using numerical factors like 2 or 1023 the Planck units above. Experiment/Genz: there are no experiments that come close to Planck's time or length, but close to Planck's mass, which is strangely large. It corresponds approximately to a dust particle. Question: why are the elementary particles so much smaller than the Planck mass? Solution: a solution is the "ongoing coupling" of quarks and gluons in the standard model. From the small value of the planck length, the coupling increases extremely slowly and only reaches the value of Planck's length that is greater with the factor 1020 that allows the existence of a bound state of quarks and gluons - the proton. Proton/Genz: for the proton - and thus for all strong interactions - the relevant length scale is not the Planck scale, but the 1020-times length scale of quantum electrochromodynamics (QCD). II 328 Planck mass/intuitive/Genz: its alleged giganticness damages the notion that all physical quantities should be discrete. Density/Genz: "worse still": if we want to place the Planck mass in a Planck length we get the 1093-times density of water._____________Explanation of symbols: Roman numerals indicate the source, arabic numerals indicate the page number. The corresponding books are indicated on the right hand side. ((s)…): Comment by the sender of the contribution. Translations: Dictionary of Arguments The note [Concept/Author], [Author1]Vs[Author2] or [Author]Vs[term] resp. "problem:"/"solution:", "old:"/"new:" and "thesis:" is an addition from the Dictionary of Arguments. If a German edition is specified, the page numbers refer to this edition. |
Gz I H. Genz Gedankenexperimente Weinheim 1999 Gz II Henning Genz Wie die Naturgesetze Wirklichkeit schaffen. Über Physik und Realität München 2002 |
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Ed. Martin Schulz, access date 2024-04-16