Interpreting the Quantum World

Interpreting the Quantum World PDF Author: Jeffrey Bub
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521653862
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 312

Get Book Here

Book Description
Philosophy of physics title by highly regarded author, fully revised for this paperback edition.

Interpreting the Quantum World

Interpreting the Quantum World PDF Author: Jeffrey Bub
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521653862
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 312

Get Book Here

Book Description
Philosophy of physics title by highly regarded author, fully revised for this paperback edition.

The Everett Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics

The Everett Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics PDF Author: Jeffrey A. Barrett
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400842743
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 402

Get Book Here

Book Description
Hugh Everett III was an American physicist best known for his many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics, which formed the basis of his PhD thesis at Princeton University in 1957. Although counterintuitive, Everett's revolutionary formulation of quantum mechanics offers the most direct solution to the infamous quantum measurement problem--that is, how and why the singular world of our experience emerges from the multiplicities of alternatives available in the quantum world. The many-worlds interpretation postulates the existence of multiple universes. Whenever a measurement-like interaction occurs, the universe branches into relative states, one for each possible outcome of the measurement, and the world in which we find ourselves is but one of these many, but equally real, possibilities. Everett's challenge to the orthodox interpretation of quantum mechanics was met with scorn from Niels Bohr and other leading physicists, and Everett subsequently abandoned academia to conduct military operations research. Today, however, Everett's formulation of quantum mechanics is widely recognized as one of the most controversial but promising physical theories of the last century. In this book, Jeffrey Barrett and Peter Byrne present the long and short versions of Everett's thesis along with a collection of his explanatory writings and correspondence. These primary source documents, many of them newly discovered and most unpublished until now, reveal how Everett's thinking evolved from his days as a graduate student to his untimely death in 1982. This definitive volume also features Barrett and Byrne's introductory essays, notes, and commentary that put Everett's extraordinary theory into historical and scientific perspective and discuss the puzzles that still remain.

The Transactional Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics

The Transactional Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics PDF Author: Ruth E. Kastner
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108830447
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 261

Get Book Here

Book Description
Provides a comprehensive exposition of the transactional interpretation of quantum mechanics and its compatibility with relativity.

Foundations and Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics

Foundations and Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics PDF Author: Gennaro Auletta
Publisher: World Scientific
ISBN: 9789810246143
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 1030

Get Book Here

Book Description
The aim of this book is twofold: to provide a comprehensive account of the foundations of the theory and to outline a theoretical and philosophical interpretation suggested from the results of the last twenty years.There is a need to provide an account of the foundations of the theory because recent experience has largely confirmed the theory and offered a wealth of new discoveries and possibilities. On the other side, the following results have generated a new basis for discussing the problem of the interpretation: the new developments in measurement theory; the experimental generation of ?Schr”dinger cats?; recent developments which allow, for the first time, the simultaneous measurement of complementary observables; quantum information processing, teleportation and computation.To accomplish this task, the book combines historical, systematic and thematic approaches.

The Emergent Multiverse

The Emergent Multiverse PDF Author: David Wallace
Publisher: OUP Oxford
ISBN: 0191057398
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 547

Get Book Here

Book Description
The Emergent Multiverse presents a striking new account of the 'many worlds' approach to quantum theory. The point of science, it is generally accepted, is to tell us how the world works and what it is like. But quantum theory seems to fail to do this: taken literally as a theory of the world, it seems to make crazy claims: particles are in two places at once; cats are alive and dead at the same time. So physicists and philosophers have often been led either to give up on the idea that quantum theory describes reality, or to modify or augment the theory. The Everett interpretation of quantum mechanics takes the apparent craziness seriously, and asks, 'what would it be like if particles really were in two places at once, if cats really were alive and dead at the same time'? The answer, it turns out, is that if the world were like that—if it were as quantum theory claims—it would be a world that, at the macroscopic level, was constantly branching into copies—hence the more sensationalist name for the Everett interpretation, the 'many worlds theory'. But really, the interpretation is not sensationalist at all: it simply takes quantum theory seriously, literally, as a description of the world. Once dismissed as absurd, it is now accepted by many physicists as the best way to make coherent sense of quantum theory. David Wallace offers a clear and up-to-date survey of work on the Everett interpretation in physics and in philosophy of science, and at the same time provides a self-contained and thoroughly modern account of it—an account which is accessible to readers who have previously studied quantum theory at undergraduate level, and which will shape the future direction of research by leading experts in the field.

Entanglement, Information, and the Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics

Entanglement, Information, and the Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics PDF Author: Gregg Jaeger
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 3540921281
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 316

Get Book Here

Book Description
Entanglement was initially thought by some to be an oddity restricted to the realm of thought experiments. However, Bell’s inequality delimiting local - havior and the experimental demonstration of its violation more than 25 years ago made it entirely clear that non-local properties of pure quantum states are more than an intellectual curiosity. Entanglement and non-locality are now understood to ?gure prominently in the microphysical world, a realm into which technology is rapidly hurtling. Information theory is also increasingly recognized by physicists and philosophers as intimately related to the foun- tions of mechanics. The clearest indicator of this relationship is that between quantum information and entanglement. To some degree, a deep relationship between information and mechanics in the quantum context was already there to be seen upon the introduction by Max Born and Wolfgang Pauli of the idea that the essence of pure quantum states lies in their provision of probabilities regarding the behavior of quantum systems, via what has come to be known as the Born rule. The signi?cance of the relationship between mechanics and information became even clearer with Leo Szilard’s analysis of James Clerk Maxwell’s infamous demon thought experiment. Here, in addition to examining both entanglement and quantum infor- tion and their relationship, I endeavor to critically assess the in?uence of the study of these subjects on the interpretation of quantum theory.

Do We Really Understand Quantum Mechanics?

Do We Really Understand Quantum Mechanics? PDF Author: Franck Laloë
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 110702501X
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 409

Get Book Here

Book Description
Gives an overview of the quantum theory and its main interpretations. Ideal for researchers in physics and mathematics.

The Cellular Automaton Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics

The Cellular Automaton Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics PDF Author: Gerard 't Hooft
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 331941285X
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 296

Get Book Here

Book Description
This book presents the deterministic view of quantum mechanics developed by Nobel Laureate Gerard 't Hooft. Dissatisfied with the uncomfortable gaps in the way conventional quantum mechanics meshes with the classical world, 't Hooft has revived the old hidden variable ideas, but now in a much more systematic way than usual. In this, quantum mechanics is viewed as a tool rather than a theory. The author gives examples of models that are classical in essence, but can be analysed by the use of quantum techniques, and argues that even the Standard Model, together with gravitational interactions, might be viewed as a quantum mechanical approach to analysing a system that could be classical at its core. He shows how this approach, even though it is based on hidden variables, can be plausibly reconciled with Bell's theorem, and how the usual objections voiced against the idea of ‘superdeterminism' can be overcome, at least in principle. This framework elegantly explains - and automatically cures - the problems of the wave function collapse and the measurement problem. Even the existence of an “arrow of time" can perhaps be explained in a more elegant way than usual. As well as reviewing the author’s earlier work in the field, the book also contains many new observations and calculations. It provides stimulating reading for all physicists working on the foundations of quantum theory.

Interpreting Quantum Theories

Interpreting Quantum Theories PDF Author: Laura Ruetsche
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0191617377
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 400

Get Book Here

Book Description
Traditionally, philosophers of quantum mechanics have addressed exceedingly simple systems: a pair of electrons in an entangled state, or an atom and a cat in Dr. Schrödinger's diabolical device. But recently, much more complicated systems, such as quantum fields and the infinite systems at the thermodynamic limit of quantum statistical mechanics, have attracted, and repaid, philosophical attention. Interpreting Quantum Theories has three entangled aims. The first is to guide those familiar with the philosophy of ordinary QM into the philosophy of 'QM infinity', by presenting accessible introductions to relevant technical notions and the foundational questions they frame. The second aim is to develop and defend answers to some of those questions. Does quantum field theory demand or deserve a particle ontology? How (if at all) are different states of broken symmetry different? And what is the proper role of idealizations in working physics? The third aim is to highlight ties between the foundational investigation of QM infinity and philosophy more broadly construed, in particular by using the interpretive problems discussed to motivate new ways to think about the nature of physical possibility and the problem of scientific realism.

Quantum Reality

Quantum Reality PDF Author: Nick Herbert
Publisher: Anchor
ISBN: 030780674X
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 290

Get Book Here

Book Description
This clearly explained layman's introduction to quantum physics is an accessible excursion into metaphysics and the meaning of reality. Herbert exposes the quantum world and the scientific and philosophical controversy about its interpretation.