Epistemological and Experimental Perspectives on Quantum Physics
Epistemological and Experimental Perspectives on Quantum Physics

Author: Daniel Greenberger

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2013-04-17

Total Pages: 369

ISBN-13: 9401714541

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From the very beginning it was realised that quantum physics involves radically new interpretative and epistemological consequences. While hitherto there has been no satisfactory philosophical analysis of these consequences, recent years have witnessed the accomplishment of many experiments to test the foundations of quantum physics, opening up vistas to a completely novel technology: quantum technology. The contributions in the present volume review the interpretative situation, analyze recent fundamental experiments, and discuss the implications of possible future technological applications. Readership: Analytic philosophers (logical empiricists), scientists (especially physicists), historians of logic, mathematics and physics, philosophers of science, and advanced students and researchers in these fields. Can be used for seminars on theoretical and experimental physics and philosophy of science, and as supplementary reading at advanced undergraduate and graduate levels.

What Is Real?
What Is Real?

Author: Adam Becker

Publisher: Basic Books

Published: 2018-03-20

Total Pages: 418

ISBN-13: 0465096069

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"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

Helgoland
Helgoland

Author: Carlo Rovelli

Publisher: Penguin

Published: 2022-05-24

Total Pages: 257

ISBN-13: 0593328892

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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

Author: Philip Ball

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 2018-10-18

Total Pages: 382

ISBN-13: 022655838X

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“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.

Perspectives on Quantum Reality
Perspectives on Quantum Reality

Author: R.K. Clifton

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2013-11-11

Total Pages: 246

ISBN-13: 940158656X

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But to admit things not visible to the gross creatures that we are is, in my opinion, to show a decent humility, and not just a lamentable addiction to metaphysics. J. S. Bell, Are There Quantum Jumps? ON CANADIAN THANKSGIVING WEEKEND in the autumn of 1994, a lively conference was held at The University of Western Ontario under the title "Conceptual Problems of Relativistic Quantum Mechanics". Most of the eighteen papers in this volume are directly connected with that conference. Articles by both theoretical physicists and philosophers of science are included, and many authors will be recognized immediately for their already substantive work in the foundations of physics. A quarter century ago Howard Stein suggested that relativistic quantum field theory should be 'the contemporary locus of metaphysical research', but there were few takers. Only fairly recently has that changed, with the result that the bulk of the papers here pursue issues that go beyond nonrelativistic quantum mechanics (or at least have serious implications for its relativistic generalization). Nevertheless, problems interpreting the nonrelativistic theory remain a persistent thorn in the side of any such endeavor, and so some of the papers develop innovative approaches to those issues as well.

Quantum Mechanics at the Crossroads
Quantum Mechanics at the Crossroads

Author: James Evans

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2006-11-02

Total Pages: 255

ISBN-13: 3540326650

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This volume brings together leading quantum physicists to expound on the meaning and future directions of quantum mechanics. It offers new insights from different vantage points to tackle essential questions in quantum mechanics and its interpretation. All the authors have written for a broad readership, and the resulting volume will appeal to everyone wishing to keep abreast of new developments in quantum mechanics, as well as its history and philosophy.

Quantum Aspects of Life
Quantum Aspects of Life

Author: Derek Abbott

Publisher: World Scientific

Published: 2008

Total Pages: 469

ISBN-13: 1848162677

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A quantum origin of life? -- Quantum mechanics and emergence -- Quantum coherence and the search for the first replicator -- Ultrafast quantum dynamics in photosynthesis -- Modelling quantum decoherence in biomolecules -- Molecular evolution -- Memory depends on the cytoskeleton, but is it quantum? -- Quantum metabolism and allometric scaling relations in biology -- Spectroscopy of the genetic code -- Towards understanding the origin of genetic languages -- Can arbitrary quantum systems undergo self-replication? -- A semi-quantum version of the game of life -- Evolutionary stability in quantum games -- Quantum transmemetic intelligence -- Dreams versus reality : plenary debate session on quantum computing -- Plenary debate: quantum effects in biology : trivial or not? -- Nontrivial quantum effects in biology : a skeptical physicists' view -- That's life! : the geometry of p electron clouds.

Infinite Potential
Infinite Potential

Author: Lothar Schafer

Publisher: Deepak Chopra

Published: 2013-04-02

Total Pages: 338

ISBN-13: 0307985962

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A hopeful and controversial view of the universe and ourselves based on the principles of quantum physics, offering a way of making our lives and the world better, with a foreword by Deepak Chopra In Infinite Potential, physical chemist Lothar Schäfer presents a stunning view of the universe as interconnected, nonmaterial, composed of a field of infinite potential, and conscious. With his own research as well as that of some of the most distinguished scientists of our time, Schäfer moves us from a reality of Darwinian competition to cooperation, a meaningless universe to a meaningful one, and a disconnected, isolated existence to an interconnected one. In so doing, he shows us that our potential is infinite and calls us to live in accordance with the order of the universe, creating a society based on the cosmic principle of connection, emphasizing cooperation and community.

Non-Dual Perspectives on Quantum Physics
Non-Dual Perspectives on Quantum Physics

Author: Tomaj Javidtash

Publisher:

Published: 2015-01-21

Total Pages: 94

ISBN-13: 9781500805630

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For thousands of years, mystical and religious traditions such as Advaita Vedanta have taught the concept of a nondual reality. In nondualism there is no mental, no physical-no separation between creator and creation. There is only one universe comprising variations of the same substance. But what do these beliefs have to do with quantum mechanics and the experimentally verified theories on the cutting edge of modern scientific thought? As it turns out, more than we could ever imagine-enough to create a natural harmony, a unity between tradition, spirituality, and science as it has never been seen before. In Nondual Perspectives on Quantum Physics, physicist Tomaj Javidtash faithfully and objectively explains the concepts behind quantum mechanics in clear and accessible language the average layperson can understand. Then, through a discussion of nondual philosophy and two major nondualistic traditions, Javidtash reveals the stunning similarities between these views of reality-addressing concepts of consciousness, perception, and the universe.

Quantum Reality
Quantum Reality

Author: Nick Herbert

Publisher: Anchor

Published: 2011-09-21

Total Pages: 290

ISBN-13: 030780674X

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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.