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The Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics

  • Book
  • © 1974

Overview

Authors:
  1. Jeffrey Bub

    1. University of Western Ontario, Canada
      Institute for the History and Philosophy of Science, Tel Aviv University, Israel

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Part of the book series: The Western Ontario Series in Philosophy of Science (WONS, volume 3)

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Table of contents (12 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages I-IX
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  2. The Statistical Algorithm of Quantum Mechanics

    • Jeffrey Bub
    Pages 1-31

  3. The Problem of Completeness

    • Jeffrey Bub
    Pages 32-48

  4. Von Neumann’s Completeness Proof

    • Jeffrey Bub
    Pages 49-54

  5. Lattice Theory: The Jauch and Piron Proof

    • Jeffrey Bub
    Pages 55-64

  6. The Imbedding Theorem of Kochen and Specker

    • Jeffrey Bub
    Pages 65-71

  7. The Bell-Wigner Locality Argument

    • Jeffrey Bub
    Pages 72-83

  8. Resolution of the Completeness Problem

    • Jeffrey Bub
    Pages 84-91

  9. The Logic of Events

    • Jeffrey Bub
    Pages 92-107

  10. Imbeddability and Validity

    • Jeffrey Bub
    Pages 108-118

  11. The Statistics of Non-Boolean Event Structures

    • Jeffrey Bub
    Pages 119-127

  12. The Measurement Problem

    • Jeffrey Bub
    Pages 128-141

  13. The Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics

    • Jeffrey Bub
    Pages 142-150

  14. Back Matter

    Pages 151-155
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Keywords

About this book

This book is a contribution to a problem in foundational studies, the problem of the interpretation of quantum mechanics, in the sense of the theoretical significance of the transition from classical to quantum mechanics. The obvious difference between classical and quantum mechanics is that quantum mechanics is statistical and classical mechanics isn't. Moreover, the statistical character of the quantum theory appears to be irreducible: unlike classical statistical mechanics, the probabilities are not generated by measures on a probability space, i. e. by distributions over atomic events or classical states. But how can a theory of mechanics be statistical and complete? Answers to this question which originate with the Copenhagen inter­ pretation of Bohr and Heisenberg appeal to the limited possibilities of measurement at the microlevel. To put it crudely: Those little electrons, protons, mesons, etc. , are so tiny, and our fingers so clumsy, that when­ ever we poke an elementary particle to see which way it will jump, we disturb the system radically - so radically, in fact, that a considerable amount of information derived from previous measurements is no longer applicable to the system. We might replace our fingers by finer probes, but the finest possible probes are the elementary particles them­ selves, and it is argued that the difficulty really arises for these.

Authors and Affiliations

  • University of Western Ontario, Canada

    Jeffrey Bub

  • Institute for the History and Philosophy of Science, Tel Aviv University, Israel

    Jeffrey Bub

Bibliographic Information

  • Book Title: The Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics

  • Authors: Jeffrey Bub

  • Series Title: The Western Ontario Series in Philosophy of Science

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-010-2229-3

  • Publisher: Springer Dordrecht

  • eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive

  • Copyright Information: D. Reidel Publishing Company, Dordrecht, Holland 1974

  • Hardcover ISBN: 978-90-277-0465-8Published: 31 July 1974

  • Softcover ISBN: 978-90-277-0466-5Published: 31 July 1974

  • eBook ISBN: 978-94-010-2229-3Published: 06 December 2012

  • Series ISSN: 1566-659X

  • Series E-ISSN: 2215-1974

  • Edition Number: 1

  • Number of Pages: X, 156

  • Topics: Philosophy of Science

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