The Philosophy of Niels Bohr

The Philosophy of Niels Bohr PDF Author: Henry J. Folse
Publisher: North Holland
ISBN:
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 304

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Book Description
Of all the developments in twentieth century physics, none has given rise to more heated debates than the changes in our understanding of science precipitated by the quantum revolution''. In this revolution, Niels Bohr's dramatically non-classical theory of the atom proved to be the springboard from which the new atomic physics drew it's momentum. Furthermore, Bohr's contribution was crucial not only because his interpretation of quantum mechanics became the most widely accepted view but also because in his role as educator and spokesman for atomic physics Bohr was very much the patron spirit of the entire quantum revolution. The conceptual framework which he proposed to provide a new viewpoint for understanding the quantum theoretical description of atomic systems became for most of this century the dominant outlook of countless productive experimental and theoretical physicists. He called this new framework complementarity''.

The Philosophy of Niels Bohr

The Philosophy of Niels Bohr PDF Author: Henry J. Folse
Publisher: North Holland
ISBN:
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 304

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Book Description
Of all the developments in twentieth century physics, none has given rise to more heated debates than the changes in our understanding of science precipitated by the quantum revolution''. In this revolution, Niels Bohr's dramatically non-classical theory of the atom proved to be the springboard from which the new atomic physics drew it's momentum. Furthermore, Bohr's contribution was crucial not only because his interpretation of quantum mechanics became the most widely accepted view but also because in his role as educator and spokesman for atomic physics Bohr was very much the patron spirit of the entire quantum revolution. The conceptual framework which he proposed to provide a new viewpoint for understanding the quantum theoretical description of atomic systems became for most of this century the dominant outlook of countless productive experimental and theoretical physicists. He called this new framework complementarity''.

Niels Bohr and Complementarity

Niels Bohr and Complementarity PDF Author: Arkady Plotnitsky
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 1461445175
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 209

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Book Description
This book offers a discussion of Niels Bohr’s conception of “complementarity,” arguably his greatest contribution to physics and philosophy. By tracing Bohr’s work from his 1913 atomic theory to the introduction and then refinement of the idea of complementarity, and by explicating different meanings of “complementarity” in Bohr and the relationships between it and Bohr’s other concepts, the book aims to offer a contained and accessible, and yet sufficiently comprehensive account of Bohr’s work on complementarity and its significance.

Complementarity

Complementarity PDF Author: Arkady Plotnitsky
Publisher: Duke University Press
ISBN: 9780822314370
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 342

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Book Description
Many commentators have remarked in passing on the resonance between deconstructionist theory and certain ideas of quantum physics. In this book, Arkady Plotnitsky rigorously elaborates the similarities and differences between the two by focusing on the work of Niels Bohr and Jacques Derrida. In detailed considerations of Bohr's notion of complementarity and his debates with Einstein, and in analysis of Derrida's work via Georges Bataille's concept of general economy, Plotnitsky demonstrates the value of exploring these theories in relation to each other. Bohr's term complementarity describes a situation, unavoidable in quantum physics, in which two theories thought to be mutually exclusive are required to explain a single phenomenon. Light, for example, can only be explained as both wave and particle, but no synthesis of the two is possible. This theoretical transformation is then examined in relation to the ways that Derrida sets his work against or outside of Hegel, also resisting a similar kind of synthesis and enacting a transformation of its own. Though concerned primarily with Bohr and Derrida, Plotnitsky also considers a wide range of anti-epistemological endeavors including the work of Nietzsche, Bataille, and the mathematician Kurt Gödel. Under the rubric of complementarity he develops a theoretical framework that raises new possiblilities for students and scholars of literary theory, philosophy, and philosophy of science.

Complementarity Beyond Physics (1928-1962)

Complementarity Beyond Physics (1928-1962) PDF Author: D. Favrholdt
Publisher: Elsevier
ISBN: 0080871089
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 665

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Book Description
This volume is divided into five parts. The title of the volume refers primarily to part I, which is by far the largest and comprises papers discussing the fundamental questions of biology and related psychological and philosophical problems. Following the reproduction of papers brought to publication by Bohr, there is a separate Appendix to Part I including some of Bohr's most interesting and substantive unpublished contributions in this area. The papers in Part I span the last thirty years of Bohr's life and display his great interest in biological problems and his unremitting efforts to show that biology cannot be reduced to physics and chemistry. Part II contains articles of a more general cultural interest. Some of these show that Bohr regarded the complementary perspective to be of value also outside the scientific sphere. Part III contains the articles Bohr wrote about the great Danish philosopher Harald Høffding. These short papers are presented in a section on their own because of the continuing discussion in the history of science about Høffding's possible influence on Bohr's work in physics and his whole scientific approach. Part IV comprises articles illuminating the history of 20th century physics. Bohr had great veneration for his predecessors and teachers, and he prepared these articles with great care. Part V contains correspondence relating to the material in Parts I through IV. As in previous volumes an inventory of relevant unpublished manuscripts held at the Niels Bohr Archive constitutes an appendix to the whole volume.

From Data to Quanta

From Data to Quanta PDF Author: Slobodan Perovic
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022679833X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 251

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Book Description
"Niels Bohr was a central figure in quantum physics, well-known for his work on atomic structure and his contributions to the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics. In this book, philosopher Slobodan Perović explores the way Bohr practiced and understood physics, and the implications of this for our understanding of modern science, especially contemporary quantum experimental physics. Perović's method of studying Bohr is philosophical-historical, and his aim is to make sense of both Bohr's understanding of physics and his method of inquiry. He argues that in several important respects, Bohr's vision of physics was driven by his desire to develop a comprehensive perspective on key features of experimental observation as well as emerging experimental work. Perović uncovers how Bohr's distinctive breakthrough contributions are characterized by a multi-layered, phased approach of building on basic experimental insights inductively to develop intermediary and overarching hypotheses. The strengths and limitations of this approach, in contrast to the mathematically or metaphysically driven approaches of other physicists at the time, made him a thoroughly distinctive kind of theorist and scientific leader. Once we see that Bohr played the typical role of a laboratory mediator, and excelled in the inductive process this required, we can fully understand the way his work was generated, the role it played in developing novel quantum concepts, and its true limitations, as well as current adherence to and use of Bohr's complementarity approach among contemporary experimentalists"--

Complementarity Beyond Physics

Complementarity Beyond Physics PDF Author: Arun Bala
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 3319397842
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 273

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Book Description
In this study Arun Bala examines the implications that Niels Bohr’s principle of complementarity holds for fields beyond physics. Bohr, one of the founding figures of modern quantum physics, argued that the principle of complementarity he proposed for understanding atomic processes has parallels in psychology, biology, and social science, as well as in Buddhist and Taoist thought. But Bohr failed to offer any explanation for why complementarity might extend beyond physics, and his claims have been widely rejected by scientists as empty speculation. Scientific scepticism has only been reinforced by the naïve enthusiasm of postmodern relativists and New Age intuitionists, who seize upon Bohr’s ideas to justify anti-realist and mystical positions. Arun Bala offers a detailed defence of Bohr’s claim that complementarity has far-reaching implications for the biological and social sciences, as well as for comparative philosophies of science, by explaining Bohr’s parallels as responses to the omnipresence of grown properties in nature.

Niels Bohr's Complementarity

Niels Bohr's Complementarity PDF Author: Makoto Katsumori
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 9400717482
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 188

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Book Description
This book explores the modern physicist Niels Bohr’s philosophical thought, specifically his pivotal idea of complementarity, with a focus on the relation between the roles of what he metaphorically calls “spectators” and “actors.” It seeks to spell out the structural and historical complexity of the idea of complementarity in terms of different modes of the ‘spectator-actor’ relation, showing, in particular, that the reorganization of Bohr’s thought starting from his 1935 debate with Einstein and his collaborators is characterized by an extension of the dynamic conception of complementarity from non-physical contexts to the very field of quantum theory. Further, linked with this analysis, the book situates Bohr’s complementarity in contemporary philosophical context by examining its intersections with post-Heideggerian hermeneutics as well as Derridean deconstruction. Specifically, it points to both the close affinities and the differences between Bohr’s idea of the ‘actor-spectator’ relation and the hermeneutic notion of the relation between “belonging” and “distanciation.”

Niels Bohr's Philosophy of Physics

Niels Bohr's Philosophy of Physics PDF Author: D. R. Murdoch
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521379274
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 312

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Book Description
This book gives a clear and comprehensive exposition of Niels Bohr's philosophy of physics. Bohr's ideas are of major importance, for they are the source of the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum physics; yet they are obscure, and call for the sort of close analysis that this book provides. The book describes the historical background of the physics from which Bohr's ideas grew. The core of the book is a detailed analysis of Bohr's arguments for complementarity and of the interpretation which he put upon it. Special emphasis is placed throughout on the contrasting views of Einstein, and the great debate between Bohr and Einstein is thoroughly examined. The book traces the philosophical influences on Bohr, and unravels the realist and anti-realist strands in his thinking. Bohr's philosophy is critically assessed in the light of recent developments in the foundations of quantum physics (the work of Bell and others) and in philosophy (the realism-anti-realism debate) and it is revealed as being much more subtle and sophisticated than it is generally taken to be. While the book will be of interest to specialists, it is written in a style that will make it accessible to those who have no specialist knowledge of the relevant physics and philosophy.

Reading Bohr: Physics and Philosophy

Reading Bohr: Physics and Philosophy PDF Author: Arkady Plotnitsky
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 1402052545
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 238

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Book Description
This book offers a new perspective on Niels Bohr's interpretation of quantum mechanics as complementarity, and on the relationships between physics and philosophy in Bohr's work. The importance of quantum field theory for Bohr's thinking has not been adequately addressed in the literature on Bohr. This book provides clarification of Bohr's writings (which usually pose problems of reading), and an analysis of the role of quantum field theory in Bohr's thinking.

Complementarity, Causality, and Explanation

Complementarity, Causality, and Explanation PDF Author: John Losee
Publisher: Transaction Publishers
ISBN: 1412850967
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 155

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Book Description
Philosophers have discussed the relationship of cause and effect from ancient times through our own. Prior to the work of Niels Bohr, these discussions presupposed that successful causal attribution implies explanation. The success of quantum theory challenged this presupposition. Bohr introduced a principle of complementarity that provides a new way of looking at causality and explanation. In this succinct review of the history of these discussions, John Losee presents the philosophical background of debates over the cause-effect relation. He reviews the positions of Aristotle, René Descartes, Isaac Newton, David Hume, Immanuel Kant, and John Stuart Mill. He shows how nineteenth-century theories in physics and chemistry were informed by a dominant theory of causality and how specific developments in physics provided the background for the emergence of quantum theory. Problems created for the "causality implies explanation" thesis by the emergence of quantum theory are reviewed in detail. Losee evaluates Bohr’s proposals to apply a principle of complementarity within physics, biology, and psychology. He also discusses the feasibility of using complementarity as a principle of interpretation within Christian theology. This volume, which includes an in-depth index, is an essential addition to the libraries of advanced undergraduate and graduate students, philosophers, and those interested in causality and explanation.