A Philosopher's Understanding of Quantum Mechanics: Possibilities and Impossibilities of a Modal Interpretation - Hardcover

Vermaas, Pieter E.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0521651085 ISBN 13: 9780521651080

Publisher: Cambridge University Press, 2000

Synopsis

This book is about how to understand quantum mechanics by means of a modal interpretation. Modal interpretations provide a general framework within which quantum mechanics can be considered as a theory that describes reality in terms of physical systems possessing definite properties. Quantum mechanics is standardly understood to be a theory about probabilities with which measurements have outcomes. Modal interpretations are relatively new attempts to present quantum mechanics as a theory which, like other physical theories, describes an observer-independent reality. In this book, Pieter Vermaas summarises the results of this work. The book will be of great value to undergraduates, graduate students and researchers in philosophy of science, and physics departments with an interest in learning about modal interpretations of quantum mechanics.

About this title

About the Author

PIETER VERMAAS studied philosophy and theoretical physics in his home town at the University of Amsterdam. He obtained his PhD with research on modal interpretations of quantum mechanics at Utrecht University with Dennis Dieks. He published several papers on especially the modal interpretation in the version proposed by Simon Kochen, Dennis Dieks and Richard Healey, in physics and philosophy journals ranging from Physical Review Letters to Minnesota Studies of Philosophy of Science. Together with Dennis Dieks he proposed a generalised modal interpretation. This generalisation has since formed the basis of much further research on modal interpretations. He bas worked at the University of Cambridge with a British Council Fellowship. Currently he is a Research Fellow at the Delft University of Technology, where he is involved in developing the new field of philosophy of technology.

Edition details

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Publication date: 2000
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0521651085
• ISBN 13: 9780521651080
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 308