Quantum Mechanics: An Empiricist View

Bas C. van Fraassen

ISBN 10: 019824861X / ISBN 13: 9780198248613

Published by Oxford University Press, 1991

About this Item

Seller Inventory # 19121305

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Quantum Mechanics: An Empiricist View
• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Publication Date: 1991
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 019824861X
• ISBN 13: 9780198248613
• Binding: Hard Cover
• Condition: New
• Seller catalogs:
  • Mathematics
  • Physics

About this title

Synopsis

After introducing the empiricist point of view in philosophy of science, and the concepts and methods of the semantic approach to scientific theories, Professor van Fraassen discusses quantum theory in three stages. He first examines the question of whether and how empirical phenomena require a non-classical theory, and what sort of theory they require. He then discusses the mathematical foundations of quantum theory with special reference to developments in the modelling of interaction, composite systems, and measurement. Finally, the author broaches the main questions of interpretation. After offering a critique of earlier interpretations, he develops a new one - the modal interpretation - which attempts to stay close to the original Copenhagen ideas without implying a radical incompleteness in quantum theory. He gives special attention to the character of composite, many-body systems and especially to the peculiar character of assemblies of identical particles in quantum statistics.

About the Author

The Scientific Image by van Fraassen, published by OUP in 1980, was co-winner of the Franklin J. Matchette Prize for a work of outstanding philosophic merit, and of the Lakatos Award for an outstanding contribution to the philosophy of science. It sold 4500 copies. More recently came Laws and Symmetry (1989), which has sold around 3000.