Veiled Reality: An Analysis Of Present- Day Quantum Mechanical Concepts (Frontiers in Physics) - Softcover

D'espagnat, Bernard

Softcover

ISBN 10: 081334087X ISBN 13: 9780813340876

Publisher: Routledge, 2003

Synopsis

By questioning the validity of some of our basic concepts, such as space, object, and causality, quantum physics contributes quite decisively to the dramatic changes now taking place in our world picture.This book is addressed not only to physicists at an early stage in their careers (the first or second year graduate student) but also to philosophers, as well as to all the senior physicists interested in the interpretation problem. Beginning with a chapter that could be described as ?philosophy for physicists,? it presents an in-depth analysis of present-day quantum mechanical concepts, an analysis of physicists and philosophers alike. Specifically, it first offers an extensive critical analysis of such topics as the Einstein, Podolsky, Rosen reality criterion, nonseparatability, the quantum measurement riddle, decoherence theory, consistent histories approaches and ontologically interpretable theories. All this then naturally leads to philosophical questions concerning, in particular, intersubjective agreement and the limit of realism. And a thorough examination of this whole material finally leads to the view that distinguishing between empirical reality and a veiled man-independent reality yields an acceptable answer to the perplexing question of how to interpret quantum physics. Veiled Reality offers nonspecialists, including students in physics, philosophy and the history of science, an accessible perspective on basic problems in the foundations of physics.

About this title

Synopsis

While quantum mechanics appears as being the most basic element of contemporary physics, its meaning remains mysterious to the very physicists who make use of it, and is acknowledged as such by all those among them who care about such questions. The final message of the bookstemming from a careful, comprehensive analysisis that this apparent obscurity is there to stay, in the sense that what quantum mechanics (and therefore the whole of physics) describes in detail is not what could be consistently referred to as man-independent reality. It is essentially what philosophers call empirical reality, that is, reality as seen through the colored glasses or our sensorial equipment and our possibilities of action. Of mind-independent reality we perceive, at best, some distorted general structures. It is veiled. While quantum mechanics appears as being the most basic element of contemporary physics, its meaning remains mysterious to the very physicists who make use of it, and is acknowledged as such by all those among them who care about such questions.

About the Author

Bernard D'espagnat

About this edition

• Publisher: Routledge
• Publication date: 2003
• ISBN 10: 081334087X
• ISBN 13: 9780813340876
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 499