Understanding Quantum Mechanics

Understanding Quantum Mechanics PDF Author: Roland Omnès
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691221928
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 326

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Book Description
Here Roland Omnès offers a clear, up-to-date guide to the conceptual framework of quantum mechanics. In an area that has provoked much philosophical debate, Omnès has achieved high recognition for his Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics (Princeton 1994), a book for specialists. Now the author has transformed his own theory into a short and readable text that enables beginning students and experienced physicists, mathematicians, and philosophers to form a comprehensive picture of the field while learning about the most recent advances. This new book presents a more streamlined version of the Copenhagen interpretation, showing its logical consistency and completeness. The problem of measurement is a major area of inquiry, with the author surveying its history from Planck to Heisenberg before describing the consistent-histories interpretation. He draws upon the most recent research on the decoherence effect (related to the modern resolution of the famous Schrödinger's cat problem) and an exact formulation of the correspondence between quantum and particle physics (implying a derivation of classical determinism from quantum probabilism). Interpretation is organized with the help of a universal and sound language using so-called consistent histories. As a language and a method, it can now be shown to be free of ambiguity and it makes interpretation much clearer and closer to common sense.

Understanding Quantum Mechanics

Understanding Quantum Mechanics PDF Author: Roland Omnès
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691221928
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 326

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Book Description
Here Roland Omnès offers a clear, up-to-date guide to the conceptual framework of quantum mechanics. In an area that has provoked much philosophical debate, Omnès has achieved high recognition for his Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics (Princeton 1994), a book for specialists. Now the author has transformed his own theory into a short and readable text that enables beginning students and experienced physicists, mathematicians, and philosophers to form a comprehensive picture of the field while learning about the most recent advances. This new book presents a more streamlined version of the Copenhagen interpretation, showing its logical consistency and completeness. The problem of measurement is a major area of inquiry, with the author surveying its history from Planck to Heisenberg before describing the consistent-histories interpretation. He draws upon the most recent research on the decoherence effect (related to the modern resolution of the famous Schrödinger's cat problem) and an exact formulation of the correspondence between quantum and particle physics (implying a derivation of classical determinism from quantum probabilism). Interpretation is organized with the help of a universal and sound language using so-called consistent histories. As a language and a method, it can now be shown to be free of ambiguity and it makes interpretation much clearer and closer to common sense.

Understanding Quantum Mechanics

Understanding Quantum Mechanics PDF Author: Detlef Dürr
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3030400689
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 247

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Book Description
This book discusses the physical and mathematical foundations of modern quantum mechanics and three realistic quantum theories that John Stuart Bell called "theories without observers" because they do not merely speak about measurements but develop an objective picture of the physical world. These are Bohmian mechanics, the GRW collapse theory, and the Many Worlds theory. The book is ideal to accompany or supplement a lecture course on quantum mechanics, but also suited for self-study, particularly for those who have completed such a course but are left puzzled by the question: "What does the mathematical formalism, which I have so laboriously learned and applied, actually tell us about nature?”

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

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

What Is Real?

What Is Real? PDF Author: Adam Becker
Publisher: Basic Books
ISBN: 0465096069
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 418

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Book Description
"A thorough, illuminating exploration of the most consequential controversy raging in modern science." --New York Times Book Review An Editor's Choice, New York Times Book Review Longlisted for PEN/E.O. Wilson Prize for Literary Science Writing Longlisted for Goodreads Choice Award Every physicist agrees quantum mechanics is among humanity's finest scientific achievements. But ask what it means, and the result will be a brawl. For a century, most physicists have followed Niels Bohr's solipsistic and poorly reasoned Copenhagen interpretation. Indeed, questioning it has long meant professional ruin, yet some daring physicists, such as John Bell, David Bohm, and Hugh Everett, persisted in seeking the true meaning of quantum mechanics. What Is Real? is the gripping story of this battle of ideas and the courageous scientists who dared to stand up for truth. "An excellent, accessible account." --Wall Street Journal "Splendid. . . . Deeply detailed research, accompanied by charming anecdotes about the scientists." --Washington Post

How to Understand Quantum Mechanics

How to Understand Quantum Mechanics PDF Author: John P. Ralston
Publisher: Morgan & Claypool Publishers
ISBN: 1681740346
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 301

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Book Description
How to Understand Quantum Mechanics presents an accessible introduction to understanding quantum mechanics in a natural and intuitive way, which was advocated by Erwin Schroedinger and Albert Einstein. A theoretical physicist reveals dozens of easy tricks that avoid long calculations, makes complicated things simple, and bypasses the worthless anguish of famous scientists who died in angst. The author's approach is light-hearted, and the book is written to be read without equations, however all relevant equations still appear with explanations as to what they mean. The book entertainingly rejects quantum disinformation, the MKS unit system (obsolete), pompous non-explanations, pompous people, the hoax of the 'uncertainty principle' (it is just a math relation), and the accumulated junk-DNA that got into the quantum operating system by misreporting it. The order of presentation is new and also unique by warning about traps to be avoided, while separating topics such as quantum probability to let the Schroedinger equation be appreciated in the simplest way on its own terms. This is also the first book on quantum theory that is not based on arbitrary and confusing axioms or foundation principles. The author is so unprincipled he shows where obsolete principles duplicated basic math facts, became redundant, and sometimes were just pawns in academic turf wars. The book has many original topics not found elsewhere, and completely researched references to original historical sources and anecdotes concerting the unrecognized scientists who actually did discover things, did not all get Nobel prizes, and yet had interesting productive lives.

Helgoland

Helgoland PDF Author: Carlo Rovelli
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0593328892
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 257

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Book Description
Named a Best Book of 2021 by the Financial Times and a Best Science Book of 2021 by The Guardian “Rovelli is a genius and an amazing communicator… This is the place where science comes to life.” ―Neil Gaiman “One of the warmest, most elegant and most lucid interpreters to the laity of the dazzling enigmas of his discipline...[a] momentous book” ―John Banville, The Wall Street Journal A startling new look at quantum theory, from the New York Times bestselling author of Seven Brief Lessons on Physics, The Order of Time, and Anaximander. One of the world's most renowned theoretical physicists, Carlo Rovelli has entranced millions of readers with his singular perspective on the cosmos. In Helgoland, he examines the enduring enigma of quantum theory. The quantum world Rovelli describes is as beautiful as it is unnerving. Helgoland is a treeless island in the North Sea where the twenty-three-year-old Werner Heisenberg made the crucial breakthrough for the creation of quantum mechanics, setting off a century of scientific revolution. Full of alarming ideas (ghost waves, distant objects that seem to be magically connected, cats that appear both dead and alive), quantum physics has led to countless discoveries and technological advancements. Today our understanding of the world is based on this theory, yet it is still profoundly mysterious. As scientists and philosophers continue to fiercely debate the meaning of the theory, Rovelli argues that its most unsettling contradictions can be explained by seeing the world as fundamentally made of relationships rather than substances. We and everything around us exist only in our interactions with one another. This bold idea suggests new directions for thinking about the structure of reality and even the nature of consciousness. Rovelli makes learning about quantum mechanics an almost psychedelic experience. Shifting our perspective once again, he takes us on a riveting journey through the universe so we can better comprehend our place in it.

Beyond Weird

Beyond Weird PDF Author: Philip Ball
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022675510X
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 382

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Book Description
“Anyone who is not shocked by quantum theory has not understood it.” Since Niels Bohr said this many years ago, quantum mechanics has only been getting more shocking. We now realize that it’s not really telling us that “weird” things happen out of sight, on the tiniest level, in the atomic world: rather, everything is quantum. But if quantum mechanics is correct, what seems obvious and right in our everyday world is built on foundations that don’t seem obvious or right at all—or even possible. An exhilarating tour of the contemporary quantum landscape, Beyond Weird is a book about what quantum physics really means—and what it doesn’t. Science writer Philip Ball offers an up-to-date, accessible account of the quest to come to grips with the most fundamental theory of physical reality, and to explain how its counterintuitive principles underpin the world we experience. Over the past decade it has become clear that quantum physics is less a theory about particles and waves, uncertainty and fuzziness, than a theory about information and knowledge—about what can be known, and how we can know it. Discoveries and experiments over the past few decades have called into question the meanings and limits of space and time, cause and effect, and, ultimately, of knowledge itself. The quantum world Ball shows us isn’t a different world. It is our world, and if anything deserves to be called “weird,” it’s us.

Foundations of Quantum Mechanics

Foundations of Quantum Mechanics PDF Author: Travis Norsen
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 3319658670
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 310

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Book Description
Authored by an acclaimed teacher of quantum physics and philosophy, this textbook pays special attention to the aspects that many courses sweep under the carpet. Traditional courses in quantum mechanics teach students how to use the quantum formalism to make calculations. But even the best students - indeed, especially the best students - emerge rather confused about what, exactly, the theory says is going on, physically, in microscopic systems. This supplementary textbook is designed to help such students understand that they are not alone in their confusions (luminaries such as Albert Einstein, Erwin Schroedinger, and John Stewart Bell having shared them), to sharpen their understanding of the most important difficulties associated with interpreting quantum theory in a realistic manner, and to introduce them to the most promising attempts to formulate the theory in a way that is physically clear and coherent. The text is accessible to students with at least one semester of prior exposure to quantum (or "modern") physics and includes over a hundred engaging end-of-chapter "Projects" that make the book suitable for either a traditional classroom or for self-study.

Understanding Quantum Physics

Understanding Quantum Physics PDF Author: Michael A. Morrison
Publisher: Addison-Wesley Professional
ISBN:
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 696

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Book Description
Written in an informal yet substantive style that is a joy to read, this book provides a uniquely engaging, in-depth introduction to the concepts of quantum physics and their practical implementation, and is filled with clear, thorough explanations that help readers develop insight into physical ideas and master techniques of problem-solving using quantum mechanics. Fully explores the concepts and strategies of quantum mechanics, showing the connections among the physical concepts that govern the atomic and sub-atomic domain of matter, and examining how these concepts manifest themselves in the mathematical machinery of quantum mechanics. Focuses on the explanations and motivations of the postulates that underlie the machinery of quantum mechanics, and applies simple, single-particle systems in one dimension. Illuminates discussions of ideas and techniques with a multitude of examples that show not just the answers but also the reasoning behind them, and adds dimension to the subject with historical, biographical and philosophical references throughout. Designed for a wide range of readers interested in various branches of physics and engineering physics.

Quantum Aspects of Life

Quantum Aspects of Life PDF Author: Derek Abbott
Publisher: World Scientific
ISBN: 1908978732
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 468

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Book Description
This book presents the hotly debated question of whether quantum mechanics plays a non-trivial role in biology. In a timely way, it sets out a distinct quantum biology agenda. The burgeoning fields of nanotechnology, biotechnology, quantum technology, and quantum information processing are now strongly converging. The acronym BINS, for Bio-Info-Nano-Systems, has been coined to describe the synergetic interface of these several disciplines. The living cell is an information replicating and processing system that is replete with naturally-evolved nanomachines, which at some level require a quantum mechanical description. As quantum engineering and nanotechnology meet, increasing use will be made of biological structures, or hybrids of biological and fabricated systems, for producing novel devices for information storage and processing and other tasks. An understanding of these systems at a quantum mechanical level will be indispensable. Contents:Foreword (Sir R Penrose)Emergence and Complexity:A Quantum Origin of Life? (P C W Davies)Quantum Mechanics and Emergence (S Lloyd)Quantum Mechanisms in Biology:Quantum Coherence and the Search for the First Replicator (J Al-Khalili & J McFadden)Ultrafast Quantum Dynamics in Photosynthesis (A O Castro, F F Olsen, C F Lee & N F Johnson)Modelling Quantum Decoherence in Biomolecules (J Bothma, J Gilmore & R H McKenzie)The Biological Evidence:Molecular Evolution: A Role for Quantum Mechanics in the Dynamics of Molecular Machines that Read and Write DNA (A Goel)Memory Depends on the Cytoskeleton, but is it Quantum? (A Mershin & D V Nanopoulos)Quantum Metabolism and Allometric Scaling Relations in Biology (L Demetrius)Spectroscopy of the Genetic Code (J D Bashford & P D Jarvis)Towards Understanding the Origin of Genetic Languages (A D Patel)Artificial Quantum Life:Can Arbitrary Quantum Systems Undergo Self-Replication? (A K Pati & S L Braunstein)A Semi-Quantum Version of the Game of Life (A P Flitney & D Abbott)Evolutionary Stability in Quantum Games (A Iqbal & T Cheon)Quantum Transmemetic Intelligence (E W Piotrowski & J S≈adkowski)The Debate:Dreams versus Reality: Plenary Debate Session on Quantum Computing (For Panel: C M Caves, D Lidar, H Brandt, A R Hamilton, Against Panel: D K Ferry, J Gea-Banacloche, S M Bezrukov, L B Kish, Debate Chair: C R Doering, Transcript Editor: D Abbott)Plenary Debate: Quantum Effects in Biology: Trivial or Not? (For Panel: P C W Davies, S Hameroff, A Zeilinger, D Abbott, Against Panel: J Eisert, H M Wiseman, S M Bezrukov, H Frauenfelder, Debate Chair: J Gea-Banacloche, Transcript Editor: D Abbott)Nontrivial Quantum Effects in Biology: A Skeptical Physicist's View (H Wiseman & J Eisert)That's Life! — The Geometry of π Electron Clouds (S Hameroff) Readership: Graduate students and researchers in quantum physics, biophysics, nanosciences, quantum chemistry, mathematical biology and complexity theory, as well as philosophers of science. Keywords:Quantum Biology;Quantum Computation;Quantum Mechanics;Biophysics;Nanotechnology;Quantum Technology;Quantum Information Processing;Bio-Info-Nano-Systems (BINS);Emergence;Complexity;Complex Systems;Cellular Automata;Game Theory;Biomolecules;Photosynthesis;DNA;Genetic Code;DecoherenceKey Features:Is structured in a debate style, where contributors argue opposing positionsBrings together some of the finest minds and latest developments in the fieldIs entirely unique and there are no competing titles