FOUNDATIONS OF PHYSICS

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 measurement during the early days of quantum theory; on the meaning of renormalization, and many others. Today, insightful reflection on the conceptual structure utilized 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. Acceptance of a paper does not imply endorsement, but is restricted to high quality contributions judged relevant and interesting by the referees and the editors. Short papers can be included in the special category "Letters to the Editor". Authors who wish to raise discussion points or propose articles of a different format are welcome to submit these as well, if they care to explain their wishes with the submission.

物理学的概念基础从一开始就在不断地修正，今天仍然如此。基础问题的讨论一直是科学进步的一个主要来源，与经验知识和数学一样。例子包括牛顿和后来的爱因斯坦关于空间和时间本质的辩论;论热与能量的本质论玻尔兹曼引起的不可逆性和概率量子理论早期物质的性质与测量关于重整化的意义，还有很多其他的。今天，对我们在理解物理世界的努力中所使用的概念结构进行深刻的反思具有特别的价值，因为这些严重的尚未解决的问题很可能需要再次修改我们对物理世界的科学描述的语法。重力的量子特性,测量在量子力学的本质,不可逆性的主要来源,信息的作用在物理科学——所有这些都是质疑的例子仍困惑和需求的解决方案可能比熟练的数学和新的实验。物理学基础是一个特权论坛，讨论这些基础问题，开放给物理学家，宇宙学家，哲学家和数学家。它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。该杂志欢迎关于特殊和广义相对论基础、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、宇宙学等问题的论文。接受一篇论文并不意味着认可，但仅限于由审稿人和编辑判断出相关且有趣的高质量文章。短篇论文可以归入“给编辑的信”这一特殊类别。希望提出讨论点或提出不同格式文章的作者，如果愿意在提交时解释他们的愿望，也欢迎提交这些讨论点或提出不同格式的文章。