The Meaning of the Wave Function

The Meaning of the Wave Function

Author: Shan Gao

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2017-03-16

Total Pages: 201

ISBN-13: 1107124352

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Covering much of the recent debate, this ambitious text provides new, decisive proof of the reality of the wave function.


The Wave Function

The Wave Function

Author: Alyssa Ney

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2013-04-08

Total Pages: 256

ISBN-13: 0190240725

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This is a new volume of original essays on the metaphysics of quantum mechanics. The essays address questions such as: What fundamental metaphysics is best motivated by quantum mechanics? What is the ontological status of the wave function? Does quantum mechanics support the existence of any other fundamental entities, e.g. particles? What is the nature of the fundamental space (or space-time manifold) of quantum mechanics? What is the relationship between the fundamental ontology of quantum mechanics and ordinary, macroscopic objects like tables, chairs, and persons? This collection includes a comprehensive introduction with a history of quantum mechanics and the debate over its metaphysical interpretation focusing especially on the main realist alternatives.


Collapse of the Wave Function

Collapse of the Wave Function

Author: Shan Gao

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2018-04-26

Total Pages: 361

ISBN-13: 1108428983

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An overview of the collapse theories of quantum mechanics. Written by distinguished physicists and philosophers of physics, it discusses the origin and implications of wave-function collapse, the controversies around collapse models and their ontologies, and new arguments for the reality of wave function collapse.


The World in the Wave Function

The World in the Wave Function

Author: Alyssa Ney

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2021-03-16

Total Pages: 272

ISBN-13: 0190097728

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If quantum theories of the world are true-and empirical evidence suggests they are-what do they tell us about us, and the world? How should quantum theories make us reevaluate our classical conceptions of material objects? Nearly a century after the development of quantum theories, a consensus has yet to emerge. Many still wonder about what these theories may be telling us about ourselves and our place in the universe. Alyssa Ney here defends and develops a particular framework for understanding the world as it is described by quantum theories. This framework was initially suggested by Schrödinger in the 1920's and was further defended as an account of reality by two philosophers of physics in the 1990's who described it as a necessary point of view for those who argue that quantum theories are correct representations of our world. This framework is called wave function realism, which interprets quantum theories such that its central object is the quantum wave function, interpreted as a field on an extremely high-dimension space. This theory views us, and all objects, as ultimately constituted out of the wave function, and though we seem to occupy three dimensions, the fundamental spatial framework of quantum worlds consists of many more dimensions. Alyssa Ney argues for and advances this view, with the goal of making a case for how this theory how it might be applied to more other relativistic quantum theories, including quantum field theories. Her conclusion develops an account of how we as human beings might ultimately see ourselves and the objects around us as constituted out of the wave function.


Do Wave Functions Jump?

Do Wave Functions Jump?

Author: Valia Allori

Publisher: Springer Nature

Published: 2020-10-02

Total Pages: 430

ISBN-13: 3030467775

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This book is a tribute to the scientific legacy of GianCarlo Ghirardi, who was one of the most influential scientists in the field of modern foundations of quantum theory. In this appraisal, contributions from friends, collaborators and colleagues reflect the influence of his world of thoughts on theory, experiments and philosophy, while also offering prospects for future research in the foundations of quantum physics. The themes of the contributions revolve around the physical reality of the wave function and its notorious collapse, randomness, relativity and experiments.


University Physics

University Physics

Author: OpenStax

Publisher:

Published: 2016-11-04

Total Pages: 622

ISBN-13: 9781680920451

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University Physics is a three-volume collection that meets the scope and sequence requirements for two- and three-semester calculus-based physics courses. Volume 1 covers mechanics, sound, oscillations, and waves. Volume 2 covers thermodynamics, electricity and magnetism, and Volume 3 covers optics and modern physics. This textbook emphasizes connections between between theory and application, making physics concepts interesting and accessible to students while maintaining the mathematical rigor inherent in the subject. Frequent, strong examples focus on how to approach a problem, how to work with the equations, and how to check and generalize the result. The text and images in this textbook are grayscale.


Explicitly Correlated Wave Functions in Chemistry and Physics

Explicitly Correlated Wave Functions in Chemistry and Physics

Author: J. Rychlewski

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2003-11-30

Total Pages: 588

ISBN-13: 9781402016745

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Explicitly Correlated Wave Functions in Chemistry and Physics is the first book devoted entirely to explicitly correlated wave functions and their theory and applications in chemistry and molecular and atomic physics. Explicitly correlated wave functions are functions that depend explicitly on interelectronic distance. The book covers a wide range of methods based on explicitly correlated functions written by leaders in the field, including Kutzelnigg, Jeziorski, Szalewicz, Klopper and Noga. The book begins with a chapter on the theory of electron correlation and then the following three chapters describe different types of functions that can be used to solve the electronic Schrödinger equation for atoms and molecules. The book goes on to discuss the effects that go beyond the Born-Oppenheimer approximation, theory of relativistic effects, solution of the Dirac-Colomb equation, and relativistic correction using ECG functions. The last part of the book reviews applications of EC functions to calculate atomic and molecular properties and to study positronic systems, resonance states of atoms and nuclear dynamics of the hydrogen molecular ion.


Quantum Ontology

Quantum Ontology

Author: Peter J. Lewis

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2016-06-13

Total Pages: 233

ISBN-13: 0190618795

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Metaphysicians should pay attention to quantum mechanics. Why? Not because it provides definitive answers to many metaphysical questions-the theory itself is remarkably silent on the nature of the physical world, and the various interpretations of the theory on offer present conflicting ontological pictures. Rather, quantum mechanics is essential to the metaphysician because it reshapes standard metaphysical debates and opens up unforeseen new metaphysical possibilities. Even if quantum mechanics provides few clear answers, there are good reasons to think that any adequate understanding of the quantum world will result in a radical reshaping of our classical world-view in some way or other. Whatever the world is like at the atomic scale, it is almost certainly not the swarm of particles pushed around by forces that is often presupposed. This book guides readers through the theory of quantum mechanics and its implications for metaphysics in a clear and accessible way. The theory and its various interpretations are presented with a minimum of technicality. The consequences of these interpretations for metaphysical debates concerning realism, indeterminacy, causation, determinism, holism, and individuality (among other topics) are explored in detail, stressing the novel form that the debates take given the empirical facts in the quantum domain. While quantum mechanics may not deliver unconditional pronouncements on these issues, the range of possibilities consistent with our knowledge of the empirical world is relatively small-and each possibility is metaphysically revisionary in some way. This book will appeal to researchers, students, and anybody else interested in how science informs our world-view.


Regularity and Approximability of Electronic Wave Functions

Regularity and Approximability of Electronic Wave Functions

Author: Harry Yserentant

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2010-05-19

Total Pages: 194

ISBN-13: 3642122485

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The electronic Schrodi ̈ nger equation describes the motion of N electrons under Coulomb interaction forces in a eld of clamped nuclei. Solutions of this equation depend on 3N variables, three spatial dimensions for each electron. Approxim- ing the solutions is thus inordinately challenging, and it is conventionally believed that a reduction to simpli ed models, such as those of the Hartree-Fock method or density functional theory, is the only tenable approach. This book seeks to c- vince the reader that this conventional wisdom need not be ironclad: the regularity of the solutions, which increases with the number of electrons, the decay behavior of their mixed derivatives, and the antisymmetry enforced by the Pauli principle contribute properties that allow these functions to be approximated with an order of complexity which comes arbitrarily close to that for a system of one or two electrons. The present notes arose from lectures that I gave in Berlin during the academic year 2008/09 to introduce beginning graduate students of mathematics into this subject. They are kept on an intermediate level that should be accessible to an audience of this kind as well as to physicists and theoretical chemists with a c- responding mathematical training.


Euclidean Quantum Gravity

Euclidean Quantum Gravity

Author: G. W. Gibbons

Publisher: World Scientific

Published: 1993

Total Pages: 604

ISBN-13: 9789810205164

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The Euclidean approach to Quantum Gravity was initiated almost 15 years ago in an attempt to understand the difficulties raised by the spacetime singularities of classical general relativity which arise in the gravitational collapse of stars to form black holes and the entire universe in the Big Bang. An important motivation was to develop an approach capable of dealing with the nonlinear, non-perturbative aspects of quantum gravity due to topologically non-trivial spacetimes. There are important links with a Riemannian geometry. Since its inception the theory has been applied to a number of important physical problems including the thermodynamic properties of black holes, quantum cosmology and the problem of the cosmological constant. It is currently at the centre of a great deal of interest.This is a collection of survey lectures and reprints of some important lectures on the Euclidean approach to quantum gravity in which one expresses the Feynman path integral as a sum over Riemannian metrics. As well as papers on the basic formalism there are sections on Black Holes, Quantum Cosmology, Wormholes and Gravitational Instantons.