La recherche présente s’intéresse à l’idée de « composition » chez Kandinsky, au sens à la fois théorique et artistique qui inspire son art dit « peinture compositionnelle ». La composition, élément technique dans la peinture traditionnelle, acquiert un sens créateur avec Kandinsky. Sur son idée novatrice qui reflète la mutation de la pensée moderne et l’exigence singulière du spirituel propre à l’artiste, converge, tout en se dépassant, toute la tradition méthodologique de la peinture figurative. Nous avons ainsi abordé ce sujet selon trois approches : l’étude de l’héritage conceptuel et méthodologique de théories traditionnelles en peinture pour comprendre et mesurer la métamorphose que lui impose la composition selon Kandinsky ; puis l’étude de la motivation personnelle de Kandinsky gravitant autour de l’idée du spirituel et de l’intériorité, pour en dégager la logique interne qui préside à sa création picturale ; enfin, nous nous sommes attachée à la théorie même de la composition qui s’exprime à travers deux sous-théories, celles de la couleur et de la forme graphique, en les confrontant aux deux styles principaux relativement opposés et liés à deux périodes, celles de Munich et du Bauhaus, ce qui nous a permis de saisir l’idée de composition dans sa réalisation effective. / The present research investigates the idea of "composition" in Kandinsky’s art in both senses of theoretical and artistic activity. With Kandinsky, the composition, which is only a technical element in traditional painting, gains a creative meaning. The whole methodological tradition converges on his innovative idea that reflects the mutation of modern thinking as well as the exigency for the spiritual peculiar to the artiste, and, doing so, surpasses itself. We have adopted three different approaches to this question. First of all, we study the conceptual and methodological legacy of the traditional theories in painting in order to understand – and weigh up – the metamorphosis induced by the composition according to Kandinsky. Then, we study Kandinsky’s personal motivation, which revolves around the idea of the spiritual and the one of interiority, in order to draw from it the very theory of composition expressing itself through two sub-theories, color’s theory and graphic form’s theory, which we compare with both of his main styles, connected to two periods, Munich period and Bauhaus period, and quite different. It is this comparison in particular that allows us to grasp Kandinsky’s idea in its effective achievement.

La Théorie de la Relativité (TRR), est une théorie particulièrement contre-intuitive dont les implications sont inaccessibles à l'expérience sensible humaine ; ce qui pose un certain nombre de difficultés de compréhension aux étudiants. Cependant, la Réalité Virtuelle (RV) offre une approche intéressante en permettant à un utilisateur d'être immergé et d'interagir dans un monde virtuel où la vitesse de la lumière est ramenée à 1 m/s. Les phénomènes relativistes deviennent ainsi directement accessibles par ses sens. Cette caractéristique, point départ de nos travaux, permet alors d’appréhender les phénomènes relativistes par une expérience « par la pratique ». L'enjeu de notre travail porte plus précisément sur la définition de moyens et de méthodes intégrés dans une plate-forme immersive permettant d'appréhender les phénomènes relativistes. Dans ce contexte, nous proposons, tout d’abord, des méthodes novatrices pour simuler les phénomènes relativistes sur un nombre quelconque d'objets en mouvement arbitraire et tenant compte de la dynamique relativiste des objets dans la scène, notamment durant leurs interactions. Nous nous focalisons sur les effets qui déforment les objets vus par l'observateur, à savoir le délai de propagation des photons, la relativité des longueurs et l'effet d'aberration. Nous définissons ensuite des méthodes pour intégrer une simulation relativiste dans un environnement immersif basé intrinsèquement sur un monde newtonien. Nous proposons également une plate-forme expérimentale dans laquelle sont intégrées des méthodes d'interaction utilisées pour mettre en scène un « jeu sérieux », ici un billard relativiste. Enfin, nous démontrons la portée de notre outil expérimental par deux voies : l'une concerne l'utilisation de l'application dans des évaluations de didactique et l'autre concerne un exemple d'extension de l'outil pour mettre en lumière un autre aspect de la Physique relativiste : la relation entre vitesse et énergie. / The Theory of Special Relativity (TSR) is a particularly counterintuitive theory. Its implications are, by nature, out of reach by human experience. Therefore we cannot perceive its effects directly, thus raising problems of comprehension for the students confronted to it. However, Virtual Reality (VR) enables us to overcome this limitation by immersing a user into a world where the velocity of light is reduced to 1 m/s. As a result, the relativistic phenomena become directly perceivable through our senses. This possibility, which is the cornerstone of our work, brings a unique way to apprehend the relativistic phenomenon trough a "hands-on" experiment.In this context, we propose, first, innovative methods to include relativistic effects in simulation containing any number of objects moving in an arbitrary direction and velocity and taking into account the relativistic dynamics of the objects, including object-to-object interaction. We focused on the relativistic phenomenon involved in the deformation of objects: the delay of propagation of the photons from the light source to the observer, as well as the relativity of length and the aberration of light. We describe, second, methods to integrate the simulation techniques, previously introduced, into an immersive environment intrinsically based on Newtonian physics. We also provide interaction methods and a concrete application in a serious game framework: a relativistic carom billiard. Finally, we demonstrate the possibilities of our platform are demonstrated in two ways: one tackles usage in the context of learning evaluation and the other is an extension of the tool to access new pieces of information relevant to TSR, such as the force profile used to launch an object with a relativistic velocity.

La théorie de la relativité linguistique propose un effet des catégories lexico-grammaticales obligatoires et constamment utilisées des langues sur la cognition et la pensée habituelle des locuteurs. En observant l’historique de ce principe, on peut retracer les orientations des chercheurs et, ainsi, faire un portrait global des origines de l’idée et de ce qu’elle constitue maintenant. Le principe de la relativité linguistique apparaît, d’abord, dans l’esprit des philosophes allemands du 18e siècle, puis est transmis par divers chercheurs et leurs perspectives jusqu’à aujourd’hui. Dans ce cheminement, il a pris forme chez les anthropologues par le biais de Boas, de Sapir et de Whorf. Plus récemment, la théorie est grandement étudiée dans les sciences cognitives. De plus, au travers de ses diverses manipulations par divers acteurs scientifiques, sa définition et ses principes ont été modifiés. Les ethnolinguistes la conçoivent différemment des scientifiques cognitifs, et ce, malgré le fait que ces deux champs traitent des mêmes principes originaux. Ainsi, dans ce mémoire, il sera question de ces développements pluridisciplinaires du principe de la relativité linguistique. Puis, une conception multidisciplinaire sera proposée : un niveau d’étude ignoré jusqu’alors sera avancé et appuyé par l’analyse des inférences grammaticales entre la catégorie de l’évidentialité et celle de la temporalité, montrant les compétences métalinguistiques relatives des locuteurs. / The linguistic relativity theory proposes that obligatory lexico-grammatical categories of languages have an effect on the cognition and habitual thinking of speakers. By observing the history of this principle, we can retrace the orientations of researchers and thus make a global portrait of the origins of the idea and what it now constitutes. The principle of linguistic relativity first appears in the work of 18th century German philosophers, then is passed on by various researchers and their perspectives to the present day. On this journey, it took shape among anthropologists through Boas, Sapir and Whorf. More recently, although from a disputed point of view of linguistic determinism, it is widely studied in the cognitive sciences. In addition, through its various manipulations by various scientific actors, its definition and principles have been modified. Ethnolinguists understand it differently from cognitive scientists, even though these two fields deal with the same original principles. Thus, in this thesis, these multidisciplinary developments of the principle of linguistic relativity will be discussed. Then, a multidisciplinary conception will be proposed : a level of study previously ignored will be advanced and supported by the analysis of grammatical inferences between the category of evidentiality and that of temporality ; showing the relative metalinguistic skills of the speakers.

Hard Science-fiction shares a close relationship with the element of spectacle. This is especially apparent in Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar (2014), a film based in realistic science and emotional appeal. Nolan makes use of creating a team comprised of creative minds with different backgrounds. This includes theoretical physicist Kip Thorne, co-writer Jonathan Nolan, and composer Hans Zimmer. Together, the four develop a film that focuses on three main facets of science: time dilation, black holes, and dimensions. Incorporating these elements based in the historical world gives Interstellar its classification as hard science-fiction, a genre based more solidly in realistic science than classical science-fiction. Thorne serves as an executive producer and advisor to all matters scientific, Zimmer composes the score to accompany and intensify the moments of spectacle, and the Nolan brothers serve to create the plot behind Interstellar. The film’s spectacle can be seen throughout, notably in the “Miller’s Planet” and “Gargantua” scenes. Nolan also incorporates Welsh Poet Dylan Thomas’s “Do not go gentle into that good night” to exemplify the film’s theme of perseverance against increasing odds. It is through these elements that Interstellar serves itself as an exemplary film for showcasing the relationship between the nature of hard science-fiction and spectacle.

The Lorentz group is a symmetry group on Minkowski space, and as such is central to studying the geometry of this and related spaces. The group therefore shows up also from physical considerations, such as trying to formulate quantum physics in anti-de Sitter space. In this thesis, the Lorentz group in 2+1 dimensions and its representations are investigated, and comparisons are made to the analogous rotation group. Firstly, all unitary irreducible representations are found and classified. Then, those representations are realised as the square-integrable, analytic functions on the unit circle and the unit disk, which turn out to correspond to the projective lightcone and the hyperbolic plane, respectively. Also, a way to realise a particular class of representations on 1+1-dimensional anti-de Sitter space is shown. / Lorentzgruppen är en symmetrigrupp på Minkowski-rum, och är således central för att studera geometrin i detta och relaterade rum. Gruppen dyker också därför upp från fysikaliska frågeställningar, såsom att försöka formulera kvantfysik i anti-de Sitter-rum. Denna uppsats undersöker Lorentzgruppen i 2+1 dimensioner och dess representationer, och jämför med den analoga rotationsgruppen. Först konstrueras och klassificeras alla unitära irreducibla representationer. Sedan realiseras dessa representationer som de analytiska funktioner på enhetscirkeln och enhetsskivan vars belopp i kvadrat är integrerbara. Det visar sig att denna cirkel respektive skiva svarar mot den projektiva ljuskonen respektive det hyperboliska planet. Dessutom visas att en särskild klass av representationer blir relevanta för att formulera kvantfysik i 1+1-dimensionellt anti-de Sitter-rum.

Meine kumulative Dissertation

We study the dynamics of free test particles in a field of Schwarzschild black hole surrounded by an external exact thin axisymmetric solutions of Einstein's equations. Specifically, we use the Bach-Weyl ring and two member of the inverted Morgan-Morgan family of solutions as the additional sources. The fractal basin boundary and other meth- ods are used to detect and quantify chaos in time-like geodesic motion of the particles, primarily by computing box-counting dimension of said basin boundary. Our results mainly consist of the dependence of the chaoticity of these systems on mass and radius of the additional source as well as conserved energy and angular momentum of the test particles. We compare our results to literature and expand on them. 1

This thesis is concerned with several problems in general relativity and low energy string theory that are pertinent to the time evolution of the gravitational field. We present a formulation of the Einstein field equations in terms of variational techniques borrowed from geometric analysis. These equations yield the evolution equations for the Cauchy problems of both general relativity and low energy string theory. We then proceed to investigate the evolutionary linear stability of Schwarzschild-like solutions in higher dimensional relativity called black strings. These objects are determined to be linearly unstable. This motivates a further stability analysis of the charged p-brane solutions of low energy string theory. We show that one can eliminate linear instabilities in p-branes for sufficiently large values of charge. We also consider the characteristic problem of general relativistic magnetohydrodynamics (GRMHD). We compute the eigenvalues and eigenvectors of GRMHD and establish degeneracy conditions. Finally, we consider the initial value problem for axisymmetric GRMHD. We formulate the general Einstein and MHD equations under the assumption of a stationary axisymmetric spacetime without assuming the circularity condition.

Modern physics is based on Newton’s laws of motion, which describe interaction via forces. In this paper, we argue that interaction needs to be described in terms of processes. By introducing the momentum work and the associated momentum energy in mechanics, we present a coherent formulation of the process equations for mechanics and thermodynamics. This naturally leads to a simple derivation of the Lorentz-transformed mass, according to which any object changes its mass in real terms when its velocity is changed. Momentum work requires a revision of Newton’s laws of motion. For the first time in the history of physics, the elastic collision between objects, such as particles, can be described as a temporal process, not as interaction via force = counter-force. The mechanism of energy conversion during the elastic collision and other mechanical processes, such as free fall, becomes clear and demonstrates the validity of the principle of energy conservation on microscale at any point in time. The results suggest that physics can be rebuilt on a more coherent footing of dynamic processes up to quantum-process thermodynamics.

Traditionally, squaring the circle has been about bringing the incommensurable work of the gods within the realm of the commensurate by using infinite cosmic principles to regulate the finite world. The American architect Claude Bragdon (1866-1946) squared the circle using his Theosophic architectural theory that was based on a neo-Pythagorean emphasis on Number, which he believed to have contained the secret of the universe. America at the turn of the 20th century was interested in Eastern spirituality at the beginning of an age of scientific relativity when the world and universe were being questioned due to new scientific discoveries based on higher-dimensional mathematical speculations that challenged relationships between humankind and the cosmos. Paralleling this scientific search was the Western conquest of the world on earth, which brought back speculations about the Near and Far East, including translations of their ancient scriptures and encyclopedias of their architecture. The fourth dimension was an imaginary mathematical (re)creation of great interest to Bragdon and common to scientific relativity and Eastern spirituality; two cultural constructs that altered the perception of time and space to affect the American imagination and architectural production. Within this context, Squaring the Circle investigates the relationship of theory to practice by considering Bragdon's architecture as the material manifestation of his Theosophic architectural theory. / Ph. D.