Author |
Plotnitsky, Arkady |
Year |
2010 |
Publisher |
New York et al: Springer |
Number of pages |
436 |
ISBN |
9780387853338 |
Keywords |
|
Abstract
Amazon (2013):
The book offers an exploration of the relationships between epistemology and probability
in the work of Niels Bohr, Werner Heisenberg, and Erwin Schrödinger; in quantum mechanics;
and in modern physics as a whole. It also considers the implications of these relationships
and of quantum theory itself for our understanding of the nature of thinking and knowledge
in general. These implications are radical and controversial. While they have been
seen as scientifically productive and intellectually liberating to some, Bohr and
Heisenberg among them, they have been troublesome to many others, beginning with Schrödinger
and, most famously, Einstein, who refused to believe that God would resort to playing
dice, as quantum theory appeared to demand. The situation led to an intense debate,
in particular the great confrontation between Einstein and Bohr, which began around
the time of the discovery of quantum mechanics by Heisenberg and Schrödinger in 1920s
and has overshadowed the history of the debate concerning quantum mechanics ever since.
The controversy itself surrounding quantum theory and the intensity of the debate
concerning it have remained undiminished. No end appears to be in sight.At the same
time, in spite of the enormous and ever proliferating amount of commentaries in all
genres (technical, philosophical, and popular), some of the deeper philosophical aspects
of quantum mechanics and of the philosophical thought of the figures considered in
this study often remain explored. The main aim of this book is to contribute to a
better understanding of the nature of quantum-theoretical thinking and of the reasons
for this extraordinary impact and controversy. Philosophically, the book pursues this
task by bringing together in a new way the relationships between epistemology and
probability in quantum theory and beyond. Historically, it does so by engaging comprehensively
and in a mutually illuminating way with the work of all three key figures responsible
for the birth of quantum mechanics - Heisenberg, Schrödinger, and, as concerns quantum
epistemology, Bohr - which has not be previously done in literature on quantum mechanics.
Among other key contributions of the book is an analysis of the role of mathematics
in quantum theory and in the thinking of Bohr, Heisenberg, and Schrödinger; a new
treatment of the famous experiment of Einstein, Podolsky, and Rosen (EPR) and of the
Bohr-Einstein exchange concerning it; and an exploration of the implications of the
epistemological problematics considered by the book for new developments of quantum
mechanics itself, such as quantum information theory, on the one hand, and, on the
other, for higher-level physical theories, from quantum field theory to string/brane
theories and new cosmological theories.