Tag Archives: physics

What Is Mathematics?

Posted on August 4, 2017 by

Mathematics is a language. More specifically, mathematics is the language that scientists use to organise and order observations. For example, physicists may describe falling stones in terms of mathematical concepts like parabolas and perfect spheres and sociologists describe their observations … Continue reading →

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PhD Dissertation

Posted on June 8, 2017 by

I have defended my PhD dissertation on 13/07/2017 in Utrecht. Below you can find the documents which have kept me busy for several years: Preface (English) Samenvatting (Nederlands) Gearfetting (Frysk) Complete Dissertation    

Posted in Philosophy of Mathematics, Philosophy of Physics, Probability | Tagged , , , | 5 Comments

Does Science Describe Reality?

Posted on September 1, 2016 by

In the philosophy of science there is a debate about whether scientific theories tell us what the world is really like, or whether scientific theories are nothing more than ‘tools’ or ‘instruments’ – useful for making predictions, but not for … Continue reading →

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What Is A Dimension?

Posted on March 29, 2016 by

  In sci-fi movies there is often talk of “going to another dimension” as if there is some kind of barrier in between dimensions that can be crossed only if the circumstances are very special – usually the filmmakers are … Continue reading →

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How Natural Is The Natural Logarithm?

Posted on March 7, 2016 by

I want to show in this post that the natural logarithm is not natural – it is not a characteristic of objective nature. The natural logarithm pops up everywhere in science: biology, sociology, economics… and the list goes on. Every student of … Continue reading →

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Kant & Modern Physics

Posted on February 29, 2016 by

The part of Kant’s philosophy that I’ll be discussing in this post is Kant’s view on human knowledge. The central idea of Kant is rather straightforward: the world must be such that knowledge is possible. The world, according to Kant, must … Continue reading →

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Probability “0” Is Not Impossibility

Posted on February 26, 2016 by

The probability that a dart will hit any specific point of a dartboard is zero because there are infinitely many points on the board. And yet if you throw a dart at a dartboard you’ll always hit some point (assuming … Continue reading →

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Probability “1” Is Not Certainty

Posted on February 12, 2016 by

They sometimes say that if you try something very often then you will succeed. Say you play a game of dice and in every round there is a non-zero probability that you’ll win. As the number of rounds you play … Continue reading →

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