Causality and Chance in Modern Physics

Causality and Chance in Modern Physics PDF Author: David Bohm
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
ISBN: 9780812210026
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 188

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Book Description
In this classic, David Bohm was the first to offer us his causal interpretation of the quantum theory. Causality and Chance in Modern Physics continues to make possible further insight into the meaning of the quantum theory and to suggest ways of extending the theory into new directions.

Causality and Chance in Modern Physics

Causality and Chance in Modern Physics PDF Author: David Bohm
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
ISBN: 9780812210026
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 188

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Book Description
In this classic, David Bohm was the first to offer us his causal interpretation of the quantum theory. Causality and Chance in Modern Physics continues to make possible further insight into the meaning of the quantum theory and to suggest ways of extending the theory into new directions.

Understanding Space, Time and Causality

Understanding Space, Time and Causality PDF Author: B.V. Sreekantan
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 0429534744
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 178

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Book Description
This book examines issues related to the concepts of space, time and causality in the context of modern physics and ancient Indian traditions. It looks at the similarity and convergence of these concepts of modern physics with those discussed in ancient Indian wisdom. The volume brings the methodologies of empiricism and introspection together to highlight the synergy between these two strands. It discusses wide-ranging themes including the quantum vacuum as ultimate reality, quantum entanglement and metaphysics of relations, identity and individuality, and dark energy and anti-matter as discussed in physics and in Indian philosophical schools like Vedanta, Yoga, Buddhist, Kashmiri Shaivism and Jaina Philosophy. First of its kind, this book will be an essential read for scholars and researches of philosophy, Indian philosophy, philosophy of science, theoretical physics and social science.

Writings on Physics and Philosophy

Writings on Physics and Philosophy PDF Author: Wolfgang Pauli
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 9783540568599
Category : Mathematics
Languages : en
Pages : 304

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Book Description
Wolfgang Pauli was not only a Nobel laureate and one of the creators of modern physics, but also eminent philosopher of modern science. In his essays he writes about space, time and causality, symmetry and the exclusion principle, but also about the role of the unconscious in modern science.

Causal Reasoning in Physics

Causal Reasoning in Physics PDF Author: Mathias Frisch
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107031494
Category : Mathematics
Languages : en
Pages : 265

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Book Description
This book argues, partly through detailed case studies, for the importance of causal reasoning in physics.

Quantum Causality

Quantum Causality PDF Author: Peter J. Riggs
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 9048124034
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 240

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Book Description
There is no sharp dividing line between the foundations of physics and philosophy of physics. This is especially true for quantum mechanics. The debate on the interpretation of quantum mechanics has raged in both the scientific and philosophical communities since the 1920s and continues to this day. (We shall understand the unqualified term ‘quantum mechanics’ to mean the mathematical formalism, i. e. laws and rules by which empirical predictions and theoretical advances are made. ) There is a popular rendering of quantum mechanics which has been publicly endorsed by some well known physicists which says that quantum mechanics is not only 1 more weird than we imagine but is weirder than we can imagine. Although it is readily granted that quantum mechanics has produced some strange and counter-intuitive results, the case will be presented in this book that quantum mechanics is not as weird as we might have been led to believe! The prevailing theory of quantum mechanics is called Orthodox Quantum Theory (also known as the Copenhagen Interpretation). Orthodox Quantum Theory endows a special status on measurement processes by requiring an intervention of an observer or an observer’s proxy (e. g. a measuring apparatus). The placement of the observer (or proxy) is somewhat arbitrary which introduces a degree of subjectivity. Orthodox Quantum Theory only predicts probabilities for measured values of physical quantities. It is essentially an instrumental theory, i. e.

Physical (A)Causality

Physical (A)Causality PDF Author: Karl Svozil
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781013269837
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 214

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Book Description
This book addresses the physical phenomenon of events that seem to occur spontaneously and without any known cause. These are to be contrasted with events that happen in a (pre-)determined, predictable, lawful, and causal way.All our knowledge is based on self-reflexive theorizing, as well as on operational means of empirical perception. Some of the questions that arise are the following: are these limitations reflected by our models? Under what circumstances does chance kick in? Is chance in physics merely epistemic? In other words, do we simply not know enough, or use too crude levels of description for our predictions? Or are certain events "truly", that is, irreducibly, random? The book tries to answer some of these questions by introducing intrinsic, embedded observers and provable unknowns; that is, observables and procedures which are certified (relative to the assumptions) to be unknowable or undoable. A (somewhat iconoclastic) review of quantum mechanics is presented which is inspired by quantum logic. Postulated quantum (un-)knowables are reviewed. More exotic unknowns originate in the assumption of classical continua, and in finite automata and generalized urn models, which mimic complementarity and yet maintain value definiteness. Traditional conceptions of free will, miracles and dualistic interfaces are based on gaps in an otherwise deterministic universe. This work was published by Saint Philip Street Press pursuant to a Creative Commons license permitting commercial use. All rights not granted by the work's license are retained by the author or authors.

Causation, Physics, and the Constitution of Reality

Causation, Physics, and the Constitution of Reality PDF Author: Huw Price
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199278199
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 415

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Book Description
The difference between cause and effect seems obvious and crucial in ordinary life, yet missing modern physics. Almost a century ago, Bertrand Russell called the law of causality 'a relic of a bygone age'. Scholars revisit Russell's conclusion, discussing one of the most significant and puzzling issues in contemporary thought.

Causation in Science

Causation in Science PDF Author: Yemima Ben-Menahem
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400889294
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 221

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Book Description
This book explores the role of causal constraints in science, shifting our attention from causal relations between individual events--the focus of most philosophical treatments of causation—to a broad family of concepts and principles generating constraints on possible change. Yemima Ben-Menahem looks at determinism, locality, stability, symmetry principles, conservation laws, and the principle of least action—causal constraints that serve to distinguish events and processes that our best scientific theories mandate or allow from those they rule out. Ben-Menahem's approach reveals that causation is just as relevant to explaining why certain events fail to occur as it is to explaining events that do occur. She investigates the conceptual differences between, and interrelations of, members of the causal family, thereby clarifying problems at the heart of the philosophy of science. Ben-Menahem argues that the distinction between determinism and stability is pertinent to the philosophy of history and the foundations of statistical mechanics, and that the interplay of determinism and locality is crucial for understanding quantum mechanics. Providing historical perspective, she traces the causal constraints of contemporary science to traditional intuitions about causation, and demonstrates how the teleological appearance of some constraints is explained away in current scientific theories such as quantum mechanics. Causation in Science represents a bold challenge to both causal eliminativism and causal reductionism—the notions that causation has no place in science and that higher-level causal claims are reducible to the causal claims of fundamental physics.

Discrete Causal Theory

Discrete Causal Theory PDF Author: Benjamin F. Dribus
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 331950083X
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 577

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Book Description
This book evaluates and suggests potentially critical improvements to causal set theory, one of the best-motivated approaches to the outstanding problems of fundamental physics. Spacetime structure is of central importance to physics beyond general relativity and the standard model. The causal metric hypothesis treats causal relations as the basis of this structure. The book develops the consequences of this hypothesis under the assumption of a fundamental scale, with smooth spacetime geometry viewed as emergent. This approach resembles causal set theory, but differs in important ways; for example, the relative viewpoint, emphasizing relations between pairs of events, and relationships between pairs of histories, is central. The book culminates in a dynamical law for quantum spacetime, derived via generalized path summation.

Physics and Vertical Causation

Physics and Vertical Causation PDF Author: Wolfgang Smith
Publisher: Angelico Press
ISBN: 1621384314
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 129

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Book Description
Wolfgang Smith accomplishes a re-integration of the physical sciences into a worldview banished since the Enlightenment yet perfectly accommodative of every legitimate discovery of science. This worldview proves to be precisely what is needed to resolve the quandary of the quantum paradox, which has stymied theoretical physicists since 1927!