Ebook: Perspectives on Quantum Reality: Non-Relativistic, Relativistic, and Field-Theoretic

But to admit things not visible to the gross creatures that we are is, in my opinion, to show a decent humility, and not just a lamentable addiction to metaphysics. J. S. Bell, Are There Quantum Jumps? ON CANADIAN THANKSGIVING WEEKEND in the autumn of 1994, a lively conference was held at The University of Western Ontario under the title "Conceptual Problems of Relativistic Quantum Mechanics". Most of the eighteen papers in this volume are directly connected with that conference. Articles by both theoretical physicists and philosophers of science are included, and many authors will be recognized immediately for their already substantive work in the foundations of physics. A quarter century ago Howard Stein suggested that relativistic quantum field theory should be 'the contemporary locus of metaphysical research', but there were few takers. Only fairly recently has that changed, with the result that the bulk of the papers here pursue issues that go beyond nonrelativistic quantum mechanics (or at least have serious implications for its relativistic generalization). Nevertheless, problems interpreting the nonrelativistic theory remain a persistent thorn in the side of any such endeavor, and so some of the papers develop innovative approaches to those issues as well.

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The contributors to this volume, most of them well-known for their writings in philosophy and physics, tackle the conceptual problems of quantum mechanics from a variety of mathematical and philosophical angles. Almost half the papers focus on the largely uncharted territory of relativistic quantum mechanics and quantum field theory. These papers include: two opposing analyses of the puzzles surrounding particle localization; studies of the problems encountered in relativistically generalizing spontaneous wave packet reduction and the causal interpretation of quantum mechanics; a look at the status of locality in algebraic relativistic quantum field theory; and an attempt to clarify the tangled relation between wave and particle concepts in the context of quantum fields.
The remainder of the papers present new and innovative approaches to long standing problems in the foundations of nonrelativistic quantum mechanics - problems about measurement, irreversibility, nonlocality, contextualism, and the classical limit of quantum mechanics.
Audience: Theoretical physicists and philosophers of science, as well as graduate students in these disciplines.