Quantum Reality
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| Author | Nick Herbert |
|---|---|
| Cover artist | Mort Weiss, Tita Nasol |
| Subject | Quantum physics |
| Published | 1985 (Anchor Books/Doubleday) |
| Pages | 268 |
| ISBN | |
| 530.1'2 82-46033 | |
| LC Class | QC174.12.H47 1985 |
Quantum Reality is a 1985 popular science book by physicist Nick Herbert, a member the Fundamental Fysiks Group which was formed to explore the philosophical implications of quantum theory. The book attempts to address the ontology of quantum objects, their attributes, and their interactions, without reliance on advanced mathematical concepts. Herbert discusses the most common interpretations of quantum mechanics and their consequences in turn, highlighting the conceptual advantages and drawbacks of each.
Following a brief summary of the experimental crises (such as the ultraviolet catastrophe) which motivated quantum theory, Herbert identifies four major formulations of quantum theory: Werner Heisenberg's matrix mechanics, Erwin Schrödinger's wave mechanics, Paul Dirac's transformation theory, and Richard Feynman's sum-over-histories formulation.
In introducing quantum objects (which he dubs "quons"), Herbert describes how quantum properties inhere in a wave function, which serves as a for the measurement of these properties. He likens the quantum measurement process to mathematically treating the wave function as a summation of waveforms of a particular family, with various families corresponding to particular properties. The bandwidth of the spectrum of these waveforms represents the uncertainty in the quantum measurement. Herbert shows that for pairs of conjugate variables, such as position and momentum, these bandwidths are linked such that their product has a finite lower bound, thereby illustrating the basis of Heisenberg's uncertainty principle: any single property can be measured to arbitrary precision, but conjugate properties cannot simultaneously be known to arbitrary precision.
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