Atoms Mechanics And Probability

One of the pillars of modern science, statistical mechanics, owes much to one man, the Austrian physicist Ludwig Boltzmann (1844-1906). As a result of his unusual working and writing styles, his enormous contribution remains little read and poorly understood. The purpose of this book is to make the Boltzmann corpus more accessible to physicists, philosophers, and historians, and so give it new life. The means are introductory biographical and historical materials, detailed and lucid summaries of every relevant publication, and a final chapter of critical synthesis. Special attention is given to Boltzmann's theoretical tool-box and to his patient construction of lofty formal systems even before their full conceptual import could be known. This constructive tendency largely accounts for his lengthy style, for the abundance of new constructions, for the relative vagueness of their object—and for the puzzlement of commentators. This book will help the reader cross the stylistic barrier and see how ingeniously Boltzmann combined atoms, mechanics, and probability to invent new bridges between the micro- and macro-worlds.

One of the pillars of modern science, statistical mechanics, owes much to one man, the Austrian physicist Ludwig Boltzmann (1844-1906). As a result of his unusual working and writing styles, his enormous contribution remains little read and poorly understood. The purpose of this book is to make the Boltzmann corpus more accessible to physicists, philosophers, and historians, and so give it new life. The means are introductory biographical and historical materials, detailed and lucid summaries of every relevant publication, and a final chapter of critical synthesis. Special attention is given to Boltzmann's theoretical tool-box and to his patient construction of lofty formal systems even before their full conceptual import could be known. This constructive tendency largely accounts for his lengthy style, for the abundance of new constructions, for the relative vagueness of their object--and for the puzzlement of commentators. This book will help the reader cross the stylistic barrier and see how ingeniously Boltzmann combined atoms, mechanics, and probability to invent new bridges between the micro- and macro-worlds.

Bohmian Mechanics was formulated in 1952 by David Bohm as a complete theory of quantum phenomena based on a particle picture. It was promoted some decades later by John S. Bell, who, intrigued by the manifestly nonlocal structure of the theory, was led to his famous Bell's inequalities. Experimental tests of the inequalities verified that nature is indeed nonlocal. Bohmian mechanics has since then prospered as the straightforward completion of quantum mechanics. This book provides a systematic introduction to Bohmian mechanics and to the mathematical abstractions of quantum mechanics, which range from the self-adjointness of the Schrödinger operator to scattering theory. It explains how the quantum formalism emerges when Boltzmann's ideas about statistical mechanics are applied to Bohmian mechanics. The book is self-contained, mathematically rigorous and an ideal starting point for a fundamental approach to quantum mechanics. It will appeal to students and newcomers to the field, as well as to established scientists seeking a clear exposition of the theory.

This volume provides a philosophical appraisal of probabilities in all of physics. It makes sense of probabilistic statements as they occur in the various physical theories and models and presents a plausible epistemology and metaphysics of probabilities.

This book addresses some of the problems of interpreting Schr”dinger's mechanics ? the most complete and explicit theory falling under the umbrella of ?quantum theory?. The outlook is materialist (?realist?) and stresses the development of Schr”dinger's mechanics from classical theories and its close connections with (particularly) the Hamilton?Jacobi theory. Emphasis is placed on the concepts and use of the modern objective (measure-theoretic) probability theory. The work is free from any mention of the bearing of Schr”dinger's mechanics on God, his alleged mind or, indeed, minds at all. The author has taken the na‹ve view that this mechanics is about the structure and dynamics of atomic and sub-atomic systems since he has been unable to trace any references to minds, consciousness or measurements in the foundations of the theory.

This book deals with a selection of research topics in theoretical physics that have (almost) been proven to be a dead-end or continue at least to be highly controversial. Nevertheless, small but dedicated research communities continue to work on these issues. In a series of essays this book describes their work and struggle as well as the chances of any breakthrough in these areas. It is written as both an entertainment and serious study.

The last few years have been characterized by a tremendous development of quantum information and probability and their applications, including quantum computing, quantum cryptography, and quantum random generators. In spite of the successful development of quantum technology, its foundational basis is still not concrete and contains a few sandy and shaky slices. Quantum random generators are one of the most promising outputs of the recent quantum information revolution. Therefore, it is very important to reconsider the foundational basis of this project, starting with the notion of irreducible quantum randomness. Quantum probabilities present a powerful tool to model uncertainty. Interpretations of quantum probability and foundational meaning of its basic tools, starting with the Born rule, are among the topics which will be covered by this issue. Recently, quantum probability has started to play an important role in a few areas of research outside quantum physics—in particular, quantum probabilistic treatment of problems of theory of decision making under uncertainty. Such studies are also among the topics of this issue.