Introduction

My work on the foundations of physics with Gabriele Carcassi seeks to identify the assumptions underlying different branches of physics and rederive the respective mathematical frameworks directly from the physical assumptions.

While the project is primarily a physics project, it has connections to the philosophy of science as well as mathematics. Links to all papers, talks, videos, and our book can be found on our Assumptions of Physics project website, and the book and published papers are highlighted below.

Book

Assumptions of Physics, Gabriele Carcassi and Christine A. Aidala. Michigan Publishing, 2023, (1st ed. 2021).

Published articles

"Geometric and physical interpretation of the action principle." Gabriele Carcassi, Christine A. Aidala. Scientific Reports 13, 12138 (2023). (arxiv:2208.06428)

"Hamiltonian privilege." Josh Hunt, Gabriele Carcassi, Christine A. Aidala. Erkenntnis (2023). (philsci-archive.pitt.edu/22202)

"On the common logical structure of classical and quantum mechanics." Andrea Oldofredi, Gabriele Carcassi, Christine A. Aidala. Erkenntnis (2022). (arXiv:2206.10667)

"Reverse Physics: From laws to physical assumptions." Gabriele Carcassi and Christine A. Aidala. Foundations of Physics 52, 40 (2022). (arXiv:2111.09107)

"Variability as a better characterization of Shannon entropy." Gabriele Carcassi, Christine A. Aidala, Julian Barbour. Eur. J. Phys. 42, 045102 (2021). (arXiv:1912.02012)

"The four postulates of quantum mechanics are three." Gabriele Carcassi, Lorenzo Maccone, Christine A. Aidala. Phys. Rev. Lett. 126:110402 (2021). (arXiv:2003.11007)

"Hamiltonian mechanics is conservation of information entropy." Gabriele Carcassi, Christine A. Aidala. Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics 71:60 (2020). (arXiv:2004.11569 )

"Space-time structure may be topological and not geometrical." Gabriele Carcassi and Christine A. Aidala. Phys. Scr. 95:084003 (2020). (arXiv:2006.13830)

"The fundamental connections between classical Hamiltonian mechanics, quantum mechanics and information entropy." Gabriele Carcassi and Christine A. Aidala. Int. J. of Quantum Information 18:1941025 (2020). (arXiv:2001.07206)

"Topology and experimental distinguishability." Christine A. Aidala, Gabriele Carcassi, Mark J. Greenfield. Top. Proc. 54:271, 2019. (arXiv:1708.05492)

"From physical assumptions to classical and quantum Hamiltonian and Lagrangian particle mechanics." Gabriele Carcassi, Christine A. Aidala, David J. Baker, Lydia Bieri. J. Phys. Commun. 2:045026 (2018). (arXiv:1702.07052)