Quantum philosophy : understanding and interpreting contemporary science / Roland Omnes ; translated by Arturo Sangalli.

Includes bibliographical references and indexes.

Print version record.

Cover -- Title -- Copyright -- Contents -- Preface -- Acknowledgments -- Prelude -- PART ONE: THE LEGACY -- CHAPTER I: Classical Logic -- Pythagoras and the Pariah -- Plato and the Logos -- The Logic of Aristotle and of Chrysippus -- The Paradoxes -- Two Useful Notions -- The Universals -- CHAPTER II: Classical Physics -- Astronomy, from Hipparchus to Kepler -- The Dawn of Mechanics -- Newton's Dynamics -- Waves in the Ether -- The Beginning of Electromagnetism -- A Turning Point: Maxwell's Equations -- CHAPTER III: Classical Mathematics

Classical MathematicsRigor and Profusion in the Nineteenth Century -- Mathematics and Infinity -- CHAPTER IV: Classical Philosophy of Knowledge -- Francis Bacon and Experience -- Descartes and Reason -- Locke and Empiricism -- Digression: Cognition Sciences -- Hume's Pragmatism -- Kant -- PART TWO: THE FRACTURE -- CHAPTER V: Formal Mathematics -- The Age of Formalism -- Formal Logic -- Symbols and Sets -- Propositions -- Some Remarks Regarding Truth -- Taming Infinity -- Today's Mathematics -- The Crisis in the Foundations of Set Theory

Gödel's Incompleteness TheoremA Tentative Conclusion -- CHAPTER VI: The Philosophy of Mathematics -- What Is Mathematics? -- Mathematical Realism -- Nominalism -- Mathematical Sociologism -- Mathematics and Physical Reality -- CHAPTER VII: Formal Physics -- The Century of Formal Physics -- Relativity -- The Relativistic Theory of Gravitation -- The Prehistory of the Atom -- Classical Physics in a Straitjacket -- The Assassination of Classical Physics -- The Harvest of Results -- CHAPTER VIII: The Epistemology of Physics -- Why Do We Need Interpretation?

UncertaintiesThe Principle of Complementarity -- The Reduction of the Wave Function -- PART THREE: FROM FORMAL BACK TO VISUAL: THE QUANTUM CASE -- CHAPTER IX: Between Logic and Physics -- The Outline of a Program -- The Logic of Common Sense -- Classical Dynamics and Determinism -- With the Help of an Angel -- Observables -- Rudiments of a Quantum Dialect -- Histories -- The Role of Probabilities -- The Logic of the Quantum World -- Complementarity -- A Logical Law of Physics -- CHAPTER X: Rediscovering Common Sense -- The World on a Large Scale

The Logic of Common SenseDeterminism -- A First Philosophical Survey -- CHAPTER XI: From the Measurable to the Unmeasurable -- The Poignant Problem of Interferences -- The Decoherence Effect -- The Wonders of Decoherence: Physical -- The Wonders of Decoherence: Logical -- Last Wonders: The Direction of Time -- Measurement Theory -- Wave Function Reduction Revisited -- The Chasm -- Addendum -- CHAPTER XII: On Realism -- A Brief History of Realism -- Quantum Physics and Realism -- Ordinary Reality -- Rationality versus Realism -- The "EPR" Experiment

In this magisterial work, Roland Omnès takes us from the academies of ancient Greece to the laboratories of modern science as he seeks to do no less than rebuild the foundations of the philosophy of knowledge. One of the world's leading quantum physicists, Omnès reviews the history and recent development of mathematics, logic, and the physical sciences to show that current work in quantum theory offers new answers to questions that have puzzled philosophers for centuries: Is the world ultimately intelligible? Are all events caused? Do objects have definitive locations? Omnès addresses these p.

English.

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