Thanks Boji, I read the synopsis in the link provided and it was interesting. I think the old grey matter probably has enough to contend with without delving into the main article.
Having to solve Schrödinger's wave equation (it is a partial differential) for a "quantum physics and relativity" exam (back in the early 90s) came to mind. The lecturer (who unusually was also a priest) was always using gedanken.
I was a philosophy major as well as a scientist and I used to run into this quantum physics lecturer at dinner parties and we would always argue. As a reductionist physicist he was dismissive of philosophers attempts to contemplate the nature of time (they had no place in doing so). I don't believe he actually ever realised that fundamental reality could never be seen, was for all intents and purposes ineffable, and that this had been considered (Lao Tzu, Parmenides) long before the separation of disciplines related to enquiry.
