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In July 2006, a major international conference was held at the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics, Canada, to celebrate the career and work of a remarkable man of letters. Abner Shimony, who is well known for his pioneering contributions to foundations of quantum mechanics, is a physicist as well as a philosopher, and is highly respected among the intellectuals of both communities. In line with Shimony’s conviction that philosophical investigation is not to be divorced from theoretical and empirical work in the sciences, the conference brought together leading theoretical physicists, experimentalists, as well as philosophers. This book collects twenty-three original essays stemming from the conference, on topics including history and methodology of science, Bell's theorem, probability theory, the uncertainty principle, stochastic modifications of quantum mechanics, and relativity theory. It ends with a transcript of a fascinating discussion between Lee Smolin and Shimony, ranging over the entire spectrum of Shimony's wide-ranging contributions to philosophy, science, and philosophy of science.
Potentiality, Entanglement and Passion-at-a-Distance is a book for theoretical physicists and philosophers of modern physics. It treats a puzzling and provocative aspect of recent quantum physics: the apparent interaction of certain physical events that cannot share any causal connection. These are said to be `entangled' in some way, but an explanation remains elusive. Abner Shimony - to whom the book is dedicated - and others suggest the need to revive the category of what may be seen as a metaphysical potentiality. Abner has described these events without actions to link them as `passion at a distance': not active, but passive. The discussions gathered here are written by a truly remarkable cast of scientists and philosophers and shed new light on the most profound puzzles of our times.
This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1977.
The story of how an eleven-year old boy growing up in 16th century Italy loses his birthday when the Gregorian calendar replaces the Julian calendar in 1582, and how he fights to prevent this loss. The author cleverly weaves elements of the cultural and scientific milieu of the time into an engaging and intelligent tale. Tibaldos father is a medical assistant, and his sister is a midwife. Thus, the boy grows up learning about current medical practices and his fascination for medicine makes him a fast learner. Then, when Tibaldo learns that he is about to lose his 13th birthday, he determines to do something about it. The result is both amusing and informative.
This monograph identifies the essential characteristics of the objects described by current quantum theory and considers their relationship to space-time. In the process, it explicates the senses in which quantum objects may be consistently considered to have parts of which they may be composed or into which they may be decomposed. The book also demonstrates the degree to which reduction is possible in quantum mechanics, showing it to be related to the objective indefiniteness of quantum properties and the strong non-local correlations that can occur between the physical quantities of quantum subsystems. Careful attention is paid to the relationships among such property correlations, physical causation, probability, and symmetry in quantum theory. In this way, the text identifies and clarifies the conceptual grounds underlying the unique nature of many quantum phenomena.
The Quantum Challenge, Second Edition, is an engaging and thorough treatment of the extraordinary phenomena of quantum mechanics and of the enormous challenge they present to our conception of the physical world. Traditionally, the thrill of grappling with such issues is reserved for practicing scientists, while physical science, mathematics, and engineering students are often isolated from these inspiring questions. This book was written to remove this isolation.
The advent of new experimental techniques has made possible a new generation of more precise experimental tests of fundamental quantum mechanics. This workshop addressed the confrontation of new and proposed experimental tests of quantum mechanics with standard and nonstandard quantum theory. The broad, cross-disciplinary view of the subject brought together eminent theorists and experimentalists from diverse fields.
This volume tries to continue a tradition of reviews of the contemporary research on the foundations of modern physics begun by the volume on the Einstein Podolsky-Rosen paradox that appeared a few years ago. (I) Its publication coin cides with the hundredth anniversary of de Broglie's birth (1892), a very welcome superposition, given the lasting influence of the Einstein-de Broglie conception of wave-particle duality. The present book, however, contains papers based on a broad spectrum of basic ideas, some even opposite to those that Einstein and de Broglie would have liked. The order of the contributions in this book is alphabetical by first author's name. It is important here to stress th...
This book provides a detailed account of quantum theory with a much greater emphasis on the Heisenberg equations of motion and the matrix method. No other texts have come close to discuss quantum theory in terms of depth of coverage. The book features a deeper treatment of the fundamental concepts such as the rules of constructing quantum mechanical operators and the classical-quantal correspondence; the exact and approximate methods based on the Heisenberg equations; the determinantal approach to the scattering theory and the LSZ reduction formalism where the latter method is used to obtain the transition matrix. The uncertainty relations for a number of different observables are derived and discussed. A comprehensive chapter on the quantization of systems with nonlocalized interaction is included. Exact solvable models, and approximate techniques for solution of realistic many-body problems are also considered. The book takes a unified look in the final chapter, examining the question of measurement in quantum theory, with an introduction to the Bell's inequalities.
Authored by a highly regarded international researcher and pioneer in the field, An Introduction to Quantum Optics: Photon and Biphoton Physics is a straightforward overview of basic principles and experimental evidence for the quantum theory of light. This book introduces and analyzes some of the most exciting experimental research to date in the field of quantum optics and quantum information, helping readers understand the revolutionary changes occurring in optical science. Paints a picture of light in terms of general quantum interference, to reflect the physical truth behind all optical observations Unlike most traditional books on the subject, this one introduces fundamental classical ...