Vitalism is a belief that starts from the premise that "living organisms are fundamentally different from non-living entities because they contain some non-physical element or are governed by different principles than are inanimate things." Where vitalism explicitly invokes a vital principle, that element is often referred to as the "vital spark", "energy", "élan vital", "vital force", or "vis vitalis", which some equate with the soul. In the 18th and 19th centuries, vitalism was discussed among biologists, between those who felt that the known mechanics of physics would eventually explain the difference between life and non-life and vitalists who argued that the processes of life could not be reduced to a mechanistic process. Vitalist biologists such as Johannes Reinke proposed testable hypotheses meant to show inadequacies with mechanistic explanations, but their experiments failed to provide support for vitalism. Biologists now consider vitalism in this sense to have been refuted by empirical evidence, and hence regard it either as a superseded scientific theory, or, since the mid-20th century, as a pseudoscience.
Norman Harry Packard is a chaos theory physicist and one of the founders of the Prediction Company and ProtoLife. He is an alumnus of Reed College and the University of California, Santa Cruz. Packard is known for his contributions to chaos theory, complex systems, and artificial life. He coined the phrase "the edge of chaos".
Scientific writing is about science, with the implication that the writing is done by scientists and for an audience that primarily includes peers—those with sufficient expertise to follow in detail. Scientific writing is a specialized form of technical writing, and a prominent genre of it involves reporting about scientific studies such as in articles for a scientific journal. Other scientific writing genres include writing literature-review articles, which summarize the existing state of a given aspect of a scientific field, and writing grant proposals, which are a common means of obtaining funding to support scientific research. Scientific writing is more likely to focus on the pure sciences compared to other aspects of technical communication that are more applied, although there is overlap. There is not one specific style for citations and references in scientific writing. Whether you are submitting a grant proposal, literature review articles, or submitting an article into a paper, the citation system that must be used will depend on the publication you plan to submit to.
Foundations of Physics is a monthly journal "devoted to the conceptual bases and fundamental theories of modern physics and cosmology, emphasizing the logical, methodological, and philosophical premises of modern physical theories and procedures". The journal publishes results and observations based on fundamental questions from all fields of physics, including: quantum mechanics, quantum field theory, special relativity, general relativity, string theory, M-theory, cosmology, thermodynamics, statistical physics, and quantum gravity
The Journal of Physics A: Mathematical and Theoretical is a peer-reviewed scientific journal published by IOP Publishing, the publishing branch of the Institute of Physics. It is part of the Journal of Physics series and covers theoretical physics focusing on sophisticated mathematical and computational techniques.
Journal of Physics: Condensed Matter is a weekly peer-reviewed scientific journal established in 1989 and published by IOP Publishing. The journal covers all areas of condensed matter physics including soft matter and nanostructures. The editor-in-chief is Gianfranco Pacchioni.
Simon M. Kirby is a British cognitive scientist, currently holding the Chair of Language Evolution at the University of Edinburgh, where he is Director of the Graduate School, and Programme Director for the MSc in the Evolution of Language and Cognition. He specializes in evolutionary computational models of human language and its development.
Journal of Physics D: Applied Physics is a peer-reviewed scientific journal published by IOP Publishing. It was established in 1968 from the division of the earlier title, Proceedings of the Physical Society. It has a broad coverage, including five main focus areas: magnetism; photonics and semiconductors; plasmas and plasma-surface interactions; applied surfaces and interfaces; structure and properties of matter and renewable energy/sustainability. The editor-in-chief is Huiyun Liu.
Physics-Uspekhi is a peer-reviewed scientific journal. It is an English translation of the Russian journal of physics, Uspekhi Fizicheskikh Nauk which was established in 1918. The journal publishes long review papers which are intended to generalize and summarize previously published results, making them easier to use and to understand. The journal covers all topics of modern physics. The English version has existed since 1958, first under the name Soviet Physics Uspekhi and after 1993 as Physics-Uspekhi. The year 2008 marked the 90th birthday with a jubilee retrospective.
Artificial Life is a peer-reviewed scientific journal that covers artificial life, the study of man-made systems that exhibit the behavioral characteristics of natural living systems. Its articles cover system synthesis in software, hardware, and wetware. Artificial Life was established in 1993 and is the official journal of the International Society of Artificial Life. It is published online and in hard copy by the MIT Press.
The Journal of Membrane Biology is a monthly peer-reviewed scientific journal on the nature, structure, genesis, and functions of biological membranes and on the physics and chemistry of artificial membranes with a bearing on biomembranes. According to the Journal Citation Reports, the journal has a 2022 impact factor of 2.4.
The term physics envy is used to criticize modern writing and research of academics working in areas such as "softer sciences", philosophy, liberal arts, business administration education, humanities, and social sciences. The term argues that writing and working practices in these disciplines have overused confusing jargon and complicated mathematics to seem more 'rigorous' as in heavily mathematics-based natural science subjects like physics.
Modern Physics Letters A (MPLA) is the first in a series of journals published by World Scientific under the title Modern Physics Letters. It covers specifically papers and research on gravitation, cosmology, nuclear physics, and particles and fields.
Cosmic Research is a bimonthly peer-reviewed scientific journal that was established in 1963. It is published by MAIK Nauka/Interperiodica and published online by Springer Science+Business Media. The editor-in-chief is Anatoli A. Petrukovich. The journal is a continuation of the Soviet-Russian publication Artificial Earth Satellites, in existence between 1960 and 1964.
Adaptive Behavior is a bimonthly peer-reviewed scientific journal that covers the field of adaptive behavior in living organisms and autonomous artificial systems. It was established in 1992 and is the official journal of the International Society of Adaptive Behavior. It is published by SAGE Publications.
Annals of Physics is a monthly peer-reviewed scientific journal covering all aspects of physics. It was established in 1957 and is published by Elsevier. The editor-in-chief is Neil Turok.
Artificial life is a field of study wherein researchers examine systems related to natural life, its processes, and its evolution, through the use of simulations with computer models, robotics, and biochemistry. The discipline was named by Christopher Langton, an American computer scientist, in 1986. In 1987, Langton organized the first conference on the field, in Los Alamos, New Mexico. There are three main kinds of alife, named for their approaches: soft, from software; hard, from hardware; and wet, from biochemistry. Artificial life researchers study traditional biology by trying to recreate aspects of biological phenomena.
