Foundations of Physics

期刊简介：The conceptual foundations of physics have been under constant revision from the outset, and remain so today. Discussion of foundational issues has always been a major source of progress in science, on a par with empirical knowledge and mathematics. Examples include the debates on the nature of space and time involving Newton and later Einstein; on the nature of heat and of energy; on irreversibility and probability due to Boltzmann; on the nature of matter and observation measurement during the early days of quantum theory; on the meaning of renormalisation, and many others.Today, insightful reflection on the conceptual structure utilised in our efforts to understand the physical world is of particular value, given the serious unsolved problems that are likely to demand, once again, modifications of the grammar of our scientific description of the physical world. The quantum properties of gravity, the nature of measurement in quantum mechanics, the primary source of irreversibility, the role of information in physics – all these are examples of questions about which science is still confused and whose solution may well demand more than skilled mathematics and new experiments.Foundations of Physics is a privileged forum for discussing such foundational issues, open to physicists, cosmologists, philosophers and mathematicians. It is devoted to the conceptual bases of the fundamental theories of physics and cosmology, to their logical, methodological, and philosophical premises.The journal welcomes papers on issues such as the foundations of special and general relativity, quantum theory, classical and quantum field theory, quantum gravity, unified theories, thermodynamics, statistical mechanics, cosmology, and similar.

【译文】物理学的概念基础从一开始就一直在不断修订，至今仍然如此。关于基础问题的讨论一直是科学进步的主要来源，与经验知识和数学并驾齐驱。例如，涉及牛顿和后来的爱因斯坦关于空间和时间本质的辩论；关于热和能量的本质；由于玻尔兹曼而导致的不可逆性和概率；量子理论早期关于物质和观测测量的本质；关于重整化的意义，以及其他许多问题。如今，对我们在理解物理世界时所使用的概念结构的深入反思尤其有价值，鉴于可能再次需要修改我们科学描述物理世界语法的严重未解决问题。引力的量子性质、量子力学中的测量本质、不可逆性的主要来源、信息在物理学中的作用——所有这些都是科学仍然困惑的问题，其解决方案可能需要不仅仅是熟练的数学和新的实验。物理学基础是一个讨论此类基础问题的特权论坛，向物理学家、宇宙学家、哲学家和数学家开放。该期刊致力于物理学和宇宙学基本理论的概念基础，以及它们的逻辑、方法论和哲学前提。该期刊欢迎关于特殊相对论和广义相对论的基础、量子理论、经典和量子场论、量子引力、统一理论、热力学、统计力学、宇宙学等问题的研究论文。