Epistemological and Experimental Perspectives on Quantum Physics

✍ Scribed by Abner Shimony (auth.), Daniel Greenberger, Wolfgang L. Reiter, Anton Zeilinger (eds.)

• Publisher: Springer Netherlands
• Year: 1999
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 369
• Series: Vienna Circle Institute Yearbook [1999] 7
• Edition: 1
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

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.

✦ Table of Contents

Front Matter....Pages I-X
Philosophical and Experimental Perspectives on Quantum Physics....Pages 1-18
Neutron Quantum Experiments and Their Epistemological Impact....Pages 19-41
The Dynamical Reduction Program: An Example of a Quantum Theory without Observers....Pages 43-58
Why do We Find Bohr Obscure?....Pages 59-73
Quantum Words for a Quantum World....Pages 75-87
Quantum and Classical Gödelian Indeterminism, Measurement, and Informational Collapse into the Past....Pages 89-102
Recent Advances in the Consistency of Interpretation....Pages 103-111
Active Information and Teleportation....Pages 113-126
Experimental Quantum Teleportation of Qubits and Entanglement Swapping....Pages 127-140
Quantum Teleportation....Pages 141-146
Quantum Repeaters for Quantum Communication....Pages 147-154
Quantum Engineering with Atoms and Photons in a Cavity....Pages 155-166
Why We Don’t Need Quantum Planetary Dynamics: Decoherence and the Correspondence Principle for Chaotic Systems....Pages 167-177
Is the Statistical Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics Implied by the Correspondence Principle?....Pages 179-185
The Histories of Chaotic Quantum Systems....Pages 187-198
Epistemological Problems of Measurement in Quantum Mechanics and the Appearance of the Classical World of Macroscopic Objects....Pages 199-209
Complementarity of Fringe Visibilities in Three-Particle Quantum Mechanics....Pages 211-220
Towards Coherent Matter Wave Optics with Macromolecules....Pages 221-223
Comparison of Wigner’s Function and de Broglian Probability Density for a Wave Packet and the Wave Packets Superposition....Pages 225-229
Quantum Complementarity and Information Invariance....Pages 231-234
Fermi Inhibition in Inhomogeneous Atomic Gases....Pages 235-237
Observation of Three-Particle Entanglement....Pages 239-243
Matter Wave Diffraction at Standing Light Waves....Pages 245-247
Entangled States of Orbital Angular Momentum of Photons....Pages 249-252
Zenonian Arguments in Quantum Mechanics....Pages 253-256
What John von Neumann Thought of the Bohm Interpretation....Pages 257-262
Observation of the Nondispersivity of Scalar Aharonov-Bohm Phase Shifts by Neutron Interferometry....Pages 263-265
A Bell Experiment under Strict Einstein Locality Conditions....Pages 267-269
Quantum Mechanics and Secret Communication....Pages 271-273
Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger Paradox for Three Tritters....Pages 275-278
Science — A House Built on Sand?....Pages 279-301
Ornithology in a Cubical World: Reichenbach on Scientific Realism....Pages 303-315
The Shortcomings of the TV-Screen in Cultural Communication....Pages 317-336
Quantum Measurement: On This Side of Paradox....Pages 337-345
Reviews....Pages 347-363
Back Matter....Pages 365-379

✦ Subjects

Philosophy of Science;Quantum Physics;Theoretical, Mathematical and Computational Physics;Epistemology;Philosophy of Nature