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Fedde Benedictus
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Tag Archives: physics
PhD Dissertation
I will be defending my PhD dissertation on 13/07/2017 in Utrecht. Below you can find the documents which have kept me busy the past few years: Preface (English) Samenvatting (Nederlands) Gearfetting (Frysk) Complete Dissertation
Posted in Philosophy of Mathematics, Philosophy of Physics, Probability
Tagged Kant, mathematics, physics, Probability
5 Comments
Does Science Describe Reality?
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
What Is A Dimension?
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
How Natural Is The Natural Logarithm?
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
Posted in Philosophy of Mathematics, Philosophy of Physics
Tagged logarithm, logic, mathematics, natural, physics, statistics
2 Comments
Kant & Modern Physics
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
Posted in Philosophy of Physics, Probability
Tagged Kant, logic, mathematics, physics, Probability, Reichenbach, statistics
2 Comments
Probability “0” Is Not Impossibility
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
Probability “1” Is Not Certainty
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
