Musings/Träumereien/Devaneios

“According to Henry Margenau [7], “[the epistemologist] is constantly tempted to reject all because of the difficulty of establishing any part of reality” (p. 287). But, again in the words of Margenau, “It is quite proper for us to assume that we know what a dog is even if we may not be able to define him” (p. 58). More classically, a similar idea has been expressed by David Hume: “Next to the ridicule of denying an evident truth, is that of taking much pains to defend it” (see p. 226 of [8]). In this spirit, I try to resist the temptation of raising more questions than one can possibly answer, no matter how fascinating these questions might be. Philosophy shall here serve as a practical tool for doing better physics. I try to use philosophy in a relevant and convincing way, but I am certainly not in a position to do frontier technical research in philosophy.”

In “A Philosophical Approach to Quantum Field Theory” by Hans Christian Öttinger


The way Öttinger derived his Quantum Master Equation is nothing short of masterful..."Melikes" it...

If you're into stuff like this, you can read the full review.