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This
Oxford Handbook provides a rigorous, interdisciplinary review of the history of interpretations of quantum physics, presenting the key controversies within the field, as well as outlining its successes and its extraordinary potential across various scientific fields.
List of contents
- Introduction
- Part I - Quantum physics: scientific and philosophical issues under debate
- 1: Franck Laloë: Quantum mechanics is routinely used in laboratories with great success, but no consensus on its interpretation has emerged
- 2: Wayne Myrvold: Philosophical issues raised by quantum theory and its interpretations
- Part II - Historical landmarks of the interpretations and foundations of quantum physics
- 3: Anthony Duncan and Michel Janssen: Quantization conditions, 1900-1925
- 4: Massimiliano Badino: Of weighting and counting: statistics and ontology in the old quantum theory
- 5: Helge Kragh: Dead as a doornail? Zero-point energy and Low-temperature physics in early quantum theory
- 6: Martin Jähnert and Christoph Lehner: The early debates about the interpretation of quantum mechanics
- 7: Christian Joas: Foundations and applications: the creative tension in the early development of quantum mechanics
- 8: Guido Bacciagaluppi: The statistical interpretation: Born, Heisenberg and von Neumann, 1926-27
- 9: Klaus Hentschel: A perennially grinning Cheshire cat? Over a century of experiments on light quanta and their perplexing interpretations
- 10: Daniela Monaldi: The evolving understanding of quantum statistics
- 11: Osvaldo Pessoa Jr.: The measurement problem
- 12: Michel Paty: Einstein's criticisms of quantum mechanics
- 13: David Kaiser: Tackling loopholes in experimental tests of Bell's inequality
- 14: Thiago Hartz: The measuring process in quantum field theory
- 15: Alexander Blum and Bernadette Lessel: The interpretation debate and quantum gravity
- 16: Alexei Grinbaum: Quantum information and the quest for reconstruction of quantum theory
- 17: Olivier Darrigol: Natural reconstructions of quantum mechanics
- 18: Klaas Landsman: The axiomatization of quantum theory through functional analysis: Hilbert, von Neumann, and beyond
- 19: Fabio Freitas: Tony Leggett's challenge to quantum mechanics and its path to decoherence
- Part III - Places and contexts relevant for the interpretations of quantum theory
- 20: Don Howard: The Copenhagen interpretation
- 21: Anja Skaar Jacobsen: Copenhagen and Niels Bohr
- 22: Elise Crull: Grete Hermann's Interpretation of quantum mechanics
- 23: Climério Paulo da Silva Neto: Instrumentation and the foundations of quantum mechanics
- 24: José G. Perillán: Early Solvay councils: rhetorical lenses for quantum convergence and divergence
- 25: Flavio Del Santo: The foundations of quantum mechanics in post-war Italy's cultural context
- 26: Jean-Philippe Martinez: Foundations of quantum physics in the Soviet Union
- 27: Kenji Ito: Early Japanese reactions to the interpretation of quantum mechanics, 1927-1943
- 28: Josep Simon: Form and meaning: textbooks, pedagogy, and the canonical genres of quantum mechanics
- 29: Indianara Silva: Chien-Shiung Wu's contributions to experimental philosophy
- 30: Sebastián Murgueitio Ramírez: On how Epistemological Letters changed the foundations of quantum mechanics
- 31: Thomas Ryckman: Quantum interpretations and 20th century philosophy of science
- Part IV - Historical and philosophical theses
- 32: Stefano Osnaghi: Bohr and the epistemological lesson of quantum mechanics
- 33: Olival Freire Jr: Making sense of the century-old scientific controversy over the quanta
- 34: Kristian Camilleri: Orthodoxy and heterodoxy in the postwar era
- 35: Paul Forman: The reception of the Forman thesis in modernity and postmodernity
- 36: Alexei Kojevnikov: Quantum historiography and cultural history: revisiting the Forman thesis
- 37: Richard Staley: The co-creation of classical and modern physics and the foundations of quantum mechanics
- 38: Giora Hon and Bernard R. Goldstein: Interpretation in electrodynamics, atomic theory, and quantum mechanics
- Part V - The proliferation of interpretations
- 39: Jeffrey Bub: Hidden variables
- 40: Jeffrey Barrett: Pure wave mechanics, relative states, and many worlds
- 41: Hervé Zwirn: Is QBism a possible solution to the conceptual problems of quantum mechanics?
- 42: Karen Barad: Agential realism: a relation ontology interpretation
- 43: Carlo Rovelli: Relational interpretation
- 44: Jean-Jacques Szczeciniarz and Joseph Kouneiher: Philosophy of wholeness and the general and new concept of order: Bohm's and Penrose's points of view
- 45: Valia Allori: Spontaneous localization theories
- 46: Decio Krause, Jonas Arenhart, and Otavio Bueno: The non-individuals interpretation of quantum mechanics
- 47: Dennis Dieks: Modal interpretations of quantum mechanics
- 48: Gustavo Rocha, Dean Rickles, and Florian Boge: A brief historical perspective on the consistent histories interpretation of quantum mechanics
- 49: Jean Bricmont: Einstein, Bohm and Bell: a comedy of errors
- 50: Alexander Pechenkin: The statistical (ensemble) interpretation of quantum mechanics
- 51: Emilio Santos: Stochastic interpretations of quantum mechanics
About the author
Olival Freire Jr is Professor of Physics and History of Science at the Universidade Federal da Bahia, Brazil. He is the author of The Quantum Dissidents (2015) and David Bohm: A Life Dedicated to Understanding the Quantum World (2019). In 2011 he co-edited Teoria quântica: estudos históricos e implicações culturais with Osvaldo Pessoa Jr. and Joan Lisa Bromberg and was awarded the Jabuti Prize in Science & Technology, the most important literary prize in Brazil.
Summary
This Oxford Handbook provides a rigorous, interdisciplinary review of the history of interpretations of quantum physics, presenting the key controversies within the field, as well as outlining its successes and its extraordinary potential across various scientific fields.
Additional text
Quantum mechanics is the basis for contemporary physics and our guide to technologies from the transistor to quantum computing, yet a century after its codification in 1926, debates rage over its physical meaning. The editors of this grand volume have assembled remarkable essays about the history and state of this theory like no other. Bravo! Physicists, historians and philosophers will plumb the riches here for decades.
