► Nutzungsbedingungen und
Datenschutz - terms & privacy
Contact/Impressum/Kontakt
Motion Mountain
Physikverein
Dr. Christoph Schiller
(Vorsitzender & verantwortlich für den Inhalt)
Sperberstraße 32
81827 München
Germany
Tel. (089) 44109266
Email christoph@motionmountain.net
*
Book errata and topic suggestions can be added on the wiki at https://sites.google.com/view/motionmountainsuggestions/. Every erratum and every suggestion that you send in is thoroughly evaluated. Good ones are rewarded. Research feedback is best sent via mail.
*
The Motion Mountain Physikverein (in English: Motion Mountain Research) is a non-profit research organisation that is charitable and tax-exempt according to German law. Part of the work is done in Italy. The organisation has two aims in its statute: distributing the free physics textbook (the green web pages) and conducting research in fundamental physics (the grey web pages). Your donation, however small, is welcome – and tax-deducible. The use of the donations is controlled by the German tax authorities. Thank you in advance for any donation – also in the name of all future readers. People who read make the world a better place.*
Christoph Schiller, the author of the Motion Mountain Textbook, was born in 1960 and is of Italian, German and European heritage. He is married and has two children. Raised bilingually in Varese (Italy), he studied physics at the Universität Stuttgart (Germany) and received his PhD in physics at the Université Libre de Bruxelles (Belgium), in the department of Ilya Prigogine, supported by a Grant of the Volkswagenstiftung and one of the European Union. He has also lived in Switzerland, the UK, France, Japan and the Netherlands. His Erdős number is 5, and so is his Einstein number – typical numbers for a physicist of his age. His publications and preprints are found on this site, on ResearchGate and on Google Scholar. He tweets at https://x.com/MotionMountainP and toots at https://mastodon.social/@MotionMountain.
As a physicist, Christoph Schiller is known for three reasons.
1. His freely downloadable Motion Mountain Physics Textbook makes physics
simple and captivating. This book series grew from his fascination for
nature, his drive to understand everything that moves, and his passion to
write about it. It is downloaded many 10 000 times a year. He likes to
summarize the book series and all of physics in 9
lines. The summary of thermodynamics in one single line using the
principle of smallest system entropy appeared to be new and led to a
publication with Uwe Hohm.
2. While writing, in the years leading to 2003, he formulated and
published in his textbook and then in an arxiv preprint the principle of maximum force; it states
that general relativity is a consequence of nature's limit force value
c4/4G. The principle, discovered independently also by Gary
Gibbons, is becoming a topic in an increasing number of
publications.
He also won a small award for a paper
explaining the topic with his colleagues Arun Kenath and C. Sivaram. See
his publication list on the maximum force at motionmountain.net/maximumforce.html#pp.
3. Maximum force led to his latest pastime, the strand
conjecture, which is presented on the
research page. The strand conjecture, in the meantime the strand tangle
model, summarizes all of physics in 1
line: crossing switches of fluctuating strands with Planck radius
define the quantum of action. This
fundamental principle contains relativity, gravity and gauge interactions,
determines the observed elementary particles, fixes the fundamental
constants to unique values, and uniquely deduces the Lagrangians of general
relativity and of the standard model of particle physics. The tangle model
builds on his discovery that the gauge groups U(1), SU(2) and SU(3) are
related to the three Reidemeister moves. So far, all
tests and all predictions of the strand tangle model agree with the
data. See his strand publication list at motionmountain.net/research.html.
As an innovator, Christoph Schiller grows high-tech businesses by transforming physics and technology into products and jobs. He also writes and talks about how experience with physics improves innovation management and risk management. Similarly, he likes to tell how experience with customers and companies helps to improve teaching and to improve research.
*
Pledge: Both Christoph Schiller and Motion Mountain Research fully endorse the European Code of Conduct for Research Integrity of All European Academies (ALLEA), the Rules of Good Scientific Practice of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, the German Research Foundation), and the Responsible and Ethical Conduct of Research (RECR) of the National Science Foundation of the United States. We all share a value: truthfulness. Truthfulness makes the world a better place. Truth in physics and in science is decided by agreement with observations. There is no knowingly false or misleading statement in the texts or on the website. All statements have been carefully checked with observations. This is a science website, and science simply means: no lies. Therefore, "science" does not state or teach anything. Only careful observation does so. Science is only a method, an attitude – but an important one: science is the disbelief in authorities, the belief in the ignorance of experts, the cultivation of doubt, and the habit of letting only careful observation decide what is right or wrong. If you find a statement in the texts or on this website that is or might be wrong or misleading, just write: it will be examined and improved until it is neither. If people do not answer doubts, their statements are neither true nor science.
*
Declaration of competing interests: The lack of competing interests is declared. In particular, the income and donations generated by this website do not even cover the costs of the internet provider. No other income, e.g., through advertizing or sponsors, is generated, for over 10 years.*
A personal note. This site is for sharing knowledge about
physics. If you email me, I will try to answer questions, to help, and to
be as polite as I can. I try to behave in writing as I do in person.
Polite mails will be answered.