Reality Without Realism: Matter, Thought, and Technology in Quantum Physics

✍ Scribed by Arkady Plotnitsky

• Publisher: Springer
• Year: 2021
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 358
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

This book presents quantum theory as a theory based on new relationships among matter, thought, and experimental technology, as against those previously found in physics, relationships that also redefine those between mathematics and physics in quantum theory. The argument of the book is based on its title concept, reality without realism (RWR), and in the corresponding view, the RWR view, of quantum theory. The book considers, from this perspective, the thinking of Bohr, Heisenberg, Schrödinger, and Dirac, with the aim of bringing together the philosophy and history of quantum theory. With quantum theory, the book argues, the architecture of thought in theoretical physics was radically changed by the irreducible role of experimental technology in the constitution of physical phenomena, accordingly, no longer defined independently by matter alone, as they were in classical physics or relativity. Or so it appeared. For, quantum theory, the book further argues, made us realize that experimental technology, beginning with that of our bodies, irreducibly shapes all physical phenomena, and thus makes us rethink the relationships among matter, thought, and technology in all of physics.

✦ Table of Contents

Preface
References
Acknowledgments
Contents
1 Introduction
1.1 From History to Physics and Philosophy
1.2 Toward RWR Thinking, with Kant, Riemann, and Einstein
1.3 The Rise of RWR Thinking
1.4 “Logically Possible Without Contradiction”: The Bohr–Einstein Debate and the Nature of Quantum Theory
References
2 Fundamentals of the RWR View
2.1 Introduction
2.2 Concepts
2.3 Theories, Models, and Interpretations
2.4 Reality, Realism, and Reality Without Realism
2.5 Indeterminacy, Randomness, and Probability
2.6 Measurement, Idealization, and Quantum Indefinitiveness
2.7 Conclusion
References
3 Bohr’s Breakthrough: Quantum Jumps, Quantum States, and Transitions Without Connections
3.1 Introduction
3.2 What is a Quantum Jump?: Quantum States and Transitions Without Connections
3.3 “This Insecure and Contradictory Foundation”: Bohr’s 1913 Theory as an RWR-Type Theory
3.4 “Symbols Taken from the Mechanics,” the Choice of the Observer, and the Being of the Photon
3.5 Conclusion
References
4 “The Heisenberg Method”: Algebra, Geometry, and Probability in Quantum Mechanics
4.1 Introduction
4.2 Quantum Mechanics as a Fundamental Theory: Principles, Postulates, and Formalism
4.3 From Geometry to Algebra, and from Algebra to Geometry
4.4 How Algebraic is the Heisenberg Algebraic Method?
4.5 Geometry and Algebra in Modernist Mathematics and Physics
4.6 Conclusion
References
5 Schrödinger’s Great Guess: The Time-Dependent Wave Equation
5.1 Introduction
5.2 “The Wave Radiation Forming the Basis of the Universe” Versus Quantum Discontinuity
5.3 From “The Amplitude Equation” to “The Real Wave Equation” to the Time-Dependent Equation
5.4 From Schrödinger to Dirac
5.5 Conclusion
References
6 Niels Bohr and the Character of Physical Law: “A Radical Revision of Our Attitude Toward the Problem of Physical Reality”
6.1 Introduction
6.2 From the Irrational to the Unthinkable, from the Pythagoreans to Bohr
6.3 Bohr’s Ultimate Interpretation: Phenomena and Reality Without Realism
6.4 What Does a Measurement Measure and What Does Quantum Theory Predict?
6.5 Complementarity
6.6 Causality and Complementarity
6.7 Conclusion: Law Without Law, Reality Without Realism, and It Without Bit
References
7 “Without in Any Way Disturbing the System”: Reality, Probability, and Nonlocality, from Bohr to Bell and Beyond
7.1 Introduction
7.2 Confronting EPR: Completeness, Complementarity, and Quantum Nonlocality
7.3 “Can Quantum–Mechanical Description of Physical Reality be Considered Complete?”: The EPR Experiment, Measurement, and Complementarity
7.4 Einstein-Locality and Quantum Nonlocality in the EPR Experiment
7.5 Quantum Nonlocality and Quantum Correlations
7.6 Complementarity and Entanglement: Quantum Knowledge and Quantum Ignorance, with Bohr and Schrödinger
7.7 Conclusion
References
8 “Something Happened”: The Real and the Virtual in Elementary Particle Physics
8.1 Introduction
8.2 Elementary Particles and Quantum Fields
8.3 Virtual Particles
8.4 Conclusion
References
9 From Circuits to Categories in Quantum Information Theory
9.1 Introduction
9.2 Circuits, Operations, and Probabilities: Quantum Information Theories as Principle Theories
9.3 Thinking Categorically: From Morphisms to Functors
9.4 On Quantum Information Theory Beyond Reconstruction Projects
9.5 Conclusion
References
Index