Dr. Aleksandar Gjurcinovski, Professor
Course content:
1. The place of physics in the history of science. Importance of studying the history of physics.
2. Prehistory of physics: ancient philosophy and physics, cosmological, anthropological and ontological period.
3. Atomistics of Democritus, Epicurus, and Lucretius. Heraclitus. Aristotle's Physics. Hellenistic-Roman philosophy.
4. Middle Ages and Renaissance. Christianity, Islam and Medieval Physics and Philosophy
5. Leonardo da Vinci. Copernicus. Kepler. Galileo. Descartes.
6. Scientific basis of physics. 17th century and the contributions of Huygens, Newton and Leibniz. Development of mechanics in 17th century and mechanism.
7. Electricity and magnetism to Oersted. Ampere, Faraday, Maxwell.
8. Development of electromagnetism after Maxwell. Development of optics. Jung and Fresnel.
9. Development of thermodynamics: Clausius, Boltzmann. Conservation Law and Energetics: Mayer and Joule.
10. Physics in the second half of the XIX century. The electrodynamics of moving media and representations of the ether.
11. About the atom until the 20th century: Dalton and Mendeleev. Reduction and unification of physics.
12. Modern physics. Theory of relativity and Einstein. Atomic Physics and Niels Bohr.
13. Quantum theory. Planck, Schrödinger, Heisenberg. Space-time and geometry. Nuclear physics. Elementary particles.
14. Problems of physics and their philosophical side.
15. Basic principles and categories. The principles of determinism, indeterminism, causality, symmetry.
16. Bohr's principle of complementarity.
17. Categories of physics: matter and motion, space and time, necessity and chance.
18. Epistemological problems of physics.
19. Physical theory.
20. Philosophical problems of quantum mechanics. (Relations of indeterminacy. Principle of complementarity. The Bohr and Einstein Debate. Copenhagen Interpretation. Completeness problem and hidden variables. Quantum logic.
21. Philosophical problems of the theory of relativity.