Interpreting Physics: Language and the Classical/Quantum Divide

✍ Scribed by Edward MacKinnon (auth.)

• Publisher: Springer Netherlands
• Year: 2012
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 275
• Series: Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science 289
• Edition: 1
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

This book is the first to offer a systematic account of the role of language in the development and interpretation of physics. An historical-conceptual analysis of the co-evolution of mathematical and physical concepts leads to the classical/quatum interface. Bohrian orthodoxy stresses the indispensability of classical concepts and the functional role of mathematics. This book analyses ways of extending, and then going beyond this orthodoxy orthodoxy. Finally, the book analyzes how a revised interpretation of physics impacts on basic philosophical issues: conceptual revolutions, realism, and reductionism.

✦ Table of Contents

Front Matter....Pages i-xiii
Front Matter....Pages 1-1
A Philosophical Overview....Pages 3-24
From Categories to Quantitative Concepts....Pages 25-68
The Unification of Classical Physics....Pages 69-87
The Interpretation of Classical Physics....Pages 89-119
Front Matter....Pages 121-127
Orthodox Quantum Mechanics....Pages 129-149
Beyond a Minimal Basis....Pages 151-186
Interpreting Quantum Mechanics....Pages 187-212
Realism and Reductionism....Pages 213-257
Back Matter....Pages 259-268

✦ Subjects

Philosophy of Science;Physics, general;History of Science