The Logico-Algebraic Approach to Quantum Mechanics Volume I: Historical Evolution

Hooker, C. A. editor

ISBN 10: 9027705674 / ISBN 13: 9789027705679

Published by D. Reidel Publishing Company, Dordrecht Holland / Boston MA, 1975

About this Item

6 1/4 x 9 " 607 pages. Part of The University of Western Ontario Series in Philosophy of Science. bottom of dj spine lacks 2 x 1 1/2" other small nicks and tears to dj (dj now in mylar protector). contributors G. Virkhoff and J. Von Neumann, H. Reichenbach, P. Feyerabend, V. S. Varadarajan and others.

Seller Inventory # 121777

Bibliographic Details

• Title: The Logico-Algebraic Approach to Quantum Mechanics Volume I: Historical Evolution
• Publisher: D. Reidel Publishing Company, Dordrecht Holland / Boston MA
• Publication Date: 1975
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 9027705674
• ISBN 13: 9789027705679
• Binding: hardcover
• Condition: near fine
• Dust Jacket Condition: fair

About this title

Synopsis

The twentieth century has witnessed a striking transformation in the un­ derstanding of the theories of mathematical physics. There has emerged clearly the idea that physical theories are significantly characterized by their abstract mathematical structure. This is in opposition to the tradi­ tional opinion that one should look to the specific applications of a theory in order to understand it. One might with reason now espouse the view that to understand the deeper character of a theory one must know its abstract structure and understand the significance of that struc­ ture, while to understand how a theory might be modified in light of its experimental inadequacies one must be intimately acquainted with how it is applied. Quantum theory itself has gone through a development this century which illustrates strikingly the shifting perspective. From a collection of intuitive physical maneuvers under Bohr, through a formative stage in which the mathematical framework was bifurcated (between Schrödinger and Heisenberg) to an elegant culmination in von Neumann's Hilbert space formulation the elementary theory moved, flanked even at the later stage by the ill-understood formalisms for the relativistic version and for the field-theoretic altemative; after that we have a gradual, but constant, elaboration of all these quantal theories as abstract mathematical struc­ tures (their point of departure being von Neumann's formalism) until at the present time theoretical work is heavily preoccupied with the manip­ ulation of purely abstract structures.