Author: Paul Ehrenfest
Publisher: Courier Corporation
ISBN: 0486163148
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 128
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Book Description
Classic 1912 article reformulated the foundations of the statistical approach in mechanics. Largely still valid, the treatment covers older formulation of statistico-mechanical investigations, modern formulation of kineto-statistics of the gas model, and more. 1959 edition.
Author: Meir Hemmo
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107019680
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 341
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Book Description
A philosophical perspective to statistical mechanics for graduate students and researchers in the foundations and philosophy of physics.
Author: Y. M. Guttmann
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 0521621283
Category : Mathematics
Languages : en
Pages : 283
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Book Description
A most systematic study of how to interpret probabilistic assertions in the context of statistical mechanics.
Author: Bernard D'espagnat
Publisher: CRC Press
ISBN: 0429981074
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 249
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Book Description
Conceptual Foundations of Quantum Mechanics provides a detailed view of the conceptual foundations and problems of quantum physics, and a clear and comprehensive account of the fundamental physical implications of the quantum formalism. This book deals with nonseparability, hidden variable theories, measurement theories and several related problems. Mathematical arguments are presented with an emphasis on simple but adequately representative cases. The conclusion incorporates a description of a set of relationships and concepts that could compose a legitimate view of the world.
Author: William Graham Hoover
Publisher: World Scientific
ISBN: 9789810240738
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 284
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Book Description
A small army of physicists, chemists, mathematicians, and engineers has joined forces to attack a classic problem, the ?reversibility paradox?, with modern tools. This book describes their work from the perspective of computer simulation, emphasizing the author's approach to the problem of understanding the compatibility, and even inevitability, of the irreversible second law of thermodynamics with an underlying time-reversible mechanics. Computer simulation has made it possible to probe reversibility from a variety of directions and ?chaos theory? or ?nonlinear dynamics? has supplied a useful vocabulary and set of concepts, which allow a fuller explanation of irreversibility than that available to Boltzmann or to Green and Kubo and Onsager. Clear illustration of concepts is emphasized throughout, and reinforced with a glossary of technical terms from the specialized fields which have been combined here to focus on a common theme.The book begins with a discussion contrasting the idealized reversibility of basic physics and the pragmatic irreversibility of real life. Computer models, and simulation, are next discussed and illustrated. Simulations provide the means to assimilate concepts through worked-out examples. State-of-the-art analyses, from the point of view of dynamical systems, are applied to many-body examples from nonequilibrium molecular dynamics and to chaotic irreversible flows from finite-difference, finite-element, and particle-based continuum simulations. Two necessary concepts from dynamical-systems theory ? fractals and Lyapunov instability ? are fundamental to the approach.Undergraduate-level physics, calculus, and ordinary differential equations are sufficient background for a full appreciation of this book, which is intended for advanced undergraduates, graduates, and research workers. The generous assortment of examples worked out in the text will stimulate readers to explore the rich and fruitful field of study which links fundamental reversible laws of physics to the irreversibility surrounding us all.
Author: G. Radnitzky
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 940099866X
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 424
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Book Description
This collection of essays has evolved through the co-operative efforts, which began in the fall of 1974, of the participants in a workshop sponsored by the Fritz Thyssen Foundation. The idea of holding one or more small colloquia devoted to the topics of rational choice in science and scientific progress originated in a conversation in the summer of 1973 between one of the editors (GR) and the late Imre Lakatos. Unfortunately Lakatos himself was never able to see this project through, but his thought-provoking methodology of scientific research programmes was ably expounded and defended by his successors. Indeed, this volume continues and deepens the debate inaugurated in Criticism and the Growth of Knowledge (edited by Imre Lakatos and Alan Musgrave), a book which grew out of a conference held in 1965. That debate has continued during the years that have passed since that conference. The group of discussions about the place of rationality in science which have been held between those who emphasize the history of science (with Feyerabend and Kuhn as the most prominent exponents) and the critical rationalists (Popper and his followers), with Imre Lakatos defending a middle ground, these discussions were seen by almost all commentators as the most important event in the philosophy of science in the last decade. This problem area constituted the central theme of our Thyssen workshop. The workshop operated in the following manner.
Author: Marcel Boumans
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 113428067X
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 221
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Book Description
Economics is dominated by model building, therefore a comprehension of how such models work is vital to understanding the discipline. This book provides a critical analysis of the economist's favourite tool, and as such will be an enlightening read for some, and an intriguing one for others.
Author: Jeffrey A. Barrett
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 0198844689
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 268
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Book Description
"The book starts with a description of classical mechanics then discusses the quantum phenomena that require us to give up our commonsense classical intuitions. We consider the physical and conceptual arguments that led to the standard von Neumann-Dirac formulation of quantum mechanics and how the standard theory explains quantum phenomena. This includes a discussion of how the theory's two dynamical laws work with the standard interpretation of states to explain determinate measurement records, quantum statistics, interference effects, entanglement, decoherence, and quantum nonlocality. A careful understanding of how the standard theory works ultimately leads to the quantum measurement problem. We consider how the measurement problem threatens the logical consistency of the standard theory then turn to a discussion of the main proposals for resolving it. This includes collapse formulations of quantum mechanics like Wigner's extension of the standard theory and the GRW approach and no-collapse formulations like pure wave mechanics, the various many-worlds theories, and Bohmian mechanics. In discussing alternative formulations of quantum mechanics we pay particular attention to the explanatory role played by each theory's empirical ontology and associated metaphysical commitments and the conceptual trade-offs between theoretical options"--
Author: J. J. Halliwell
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521568371
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 540
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Book Description
We say that the processes going on in the world about us are asymmetric in time or display an arrow of time. Yet this manifest fact of our experience is particularly difficult to explain in terms of the fundamental laws of physics. This volume reconciles these profoundly conflicting facts.
Author: Jan von Plato
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521597357
Category : Mathematics
Languages : en
Pages : 336
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Book Description
In this book the author charts the history and development of modern probability theory.
