Heisenberg's observability principle (original) (raw)
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Foreword to Patrick Aidan Heelan, The Observable: Heisenberg's Philosophy of Quantum Mechanics
The Observable was finished in 1970, half a decade after the 1965 publication of Patrick Aidan Heelan's study of Werner Heisenberg's phenomenological and (as Heelan would later would reflect as inseparably) hermeneutic philosophy of science, originally articulated by way not only of Heisenberg's theoretical and mathematical thinking of physical science but an interpretative reading of Edmund Husserl's 1 1 Noteworthy readings of Husserl's philosophy of science, in addition to the exemplary discussion Heelan offers in his own Space-Perception and the Philosophy of Science (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983), include Thomas Ryckman, The Reign of Relativity: Philosophy
Heisenberg and the Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics
Heisenberg and the Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics By Kristian Camilleri Cambridge Uk Cambridge University Press 2009, 2009
was a pivotal figure in the development of quantum mechanics in the 1920s, and also one of its most insightful interpreters. Together with Bohr, Heisenberg forged what is commonly known as the 'Copenhagen interpretation'. Yet Heisenberg's philosophical viewpoint did not remain fixed over time, and his interpretation of quantum mechanics differed in several crucial respects from Bohr's. This book traces the development of Heisenberg's philosophy of quantum mechanics, beginning with his positivism of the mid-1920s, through his neo-Kantian reading of Bohr in the 1930s, and culminating with his 'linguistic turn' in the 1940s and 1950s. It focuses on the nature of this transformation in Heisenberg's thought and its wider philosophical context, which have up until now not received the attention they deserve. This new perspective on Heisenberg's interpretation of quantum mechanics will interest researchers and graduate students in the history and philosophy of twentieth-century physics.
Indeterminacy and the Limits of Classical Concepts: The Transformation of Heisenberg's Thought
Perspectives on Science, 2007
This paper examines the transformation which occurs in Heisenberg's understanding of indeterminacy in quantum mechanics between 1926 and 1928. After his initial but unsuccessful attempt to construct new quantum concepts of space and time, in 1927 Heisenberg presented an operational deªnition of concepts such as 'position' and 'velocity'. Yet, after discussions with Bohr, he came to the realisation that classical concepts such as position and momentum are indispensable in quantum mechanics in spite of their limited applicability. This transformation in Heisenberg's thought, which centres on his theory of meaning, marks the critical turning point in his interpretation of quantum mechanics.
2001
It is well known that classical mechanics consists of several basic features like determinism, reductionism, completeness of knowledge and mechanism. In this article the basic assumptions which underlie those features are discussed. It is shown that these basic assumptions -though universally assumed up to the beginning of the 20th century -are far from obvious. Finally it is shown that -to a certain extent -there is nothing wrong in assuming these basic postulates. Rather, the error lies in the epistemological absolutization of the theory, which was considered as a mirroring of Nature.
The Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics Revisited
The foundations and meaning of quantum theory became a central issue to Albert Einstein and Niels Bohr since the onset of their impassioned debate in the 1920s, enriched by the contributions of many other distinguished scientists and philosophers. The questions are not settled down at all, despite the great achievements of the theory, its impressive accordance with experiment and predictive power. The fundamental and technological applications range from cosmology to biology, with the development of invaluable instruments and the design of new materials. Is quantum mechanics a complete or an incomplete theory? Is there an objective reality independent of the observer or is the reality created by the measurements? Are hidden-variable theories justifiable? Is there a quantum theory founded in a local-causal and non-linear approach that formally contains the orthodox linear theory as a special case? Can such a formulation unify classical and quantum physics? Are Heisenberg’s uncertainty relations valid in all cases? Here, the subject is addressed as an adaptation of our contribution to the Colloquium “Quantal aspects in Chemistry and Physics. A tribute in memory of Professor Ruy Couceiro da Costa” held at Academia das Ciências de Lisboa, November 27, 2009. Ruy Couceiro da Costa (1901-1955), University of Coimbra, was one of the first professors and researchers to apply and teach quantum mechanics at Portuguese universities. The above questions presumably crossed his mind as they do pervade, presently, the minds of teachers and researchers interested in the interpretation, philosophy and epistemology of quantum theory.
Quantum Mechanics as a Classical Theory III: Epistemology
2008
The two previous papers developed quantum mechanical formalism from classical mechanics and two additional postulates. In the first paper it was also shown that the uncertainty relations possess no ontological validity and only reflect the formalism’s limitations. In this paper, a Realist Interpretation of quantum mechanics based on these results is elaborated and compared to the Copenhagen Interpretation. We demonstrate that von Neumann’s proof of the impossibility of a hidden variable theory is not correct, independently of Bell’s argumentation. A local hidden variable theory is found for non-relativistic quantum mechanics, which is nothing else than newtonian mechanics itself. We prove that Bell’s theorem does not imply in a non-locality of quantum mechanics, and also demonstrate that Bohm’s theory cannot be considered a true hidden variable theory. 1
American Journal of Physics, 1979
We reformulate the problem of the "interpretation of quantum mechanics" as the problem of DERIVING the quantum mechanical formalism from a set of simple physical postulates. We suggest that the common unease with taking quantum mechanics as a fundamental description of nature could derive from the use of an incorrect notion, as the unease with the Lorentz transformations before Einstein derived from the notion of observer independent time. Following an an analysis of the measurement process as seen by different observers, we propose a reformulation of quantum mechanics in terms of INFORMATION THEORY. We propose three different postulates out of which the formalism of the theory can be reconstructed; these are based on the notion of information about each other that systems contain. All systems are assumed to be equivalent: no observer-observed distinction, and information is interpreted as correlation. We then suggest that the incorrect notion that generates the unease with quantum mechanichs is the notion of OBSERVER INDEPENDENT state of a system.
In this foreword to Patrick Heelan’s book The Observable : Heisenberg’s Philosophy of Quantum Mechanics, the influence of transcendental epistemologies on both Heisenberg and Heelan is documented. This influence can be seen in the fact that, instead of asking how the symbols of this theory hook on to things out there, the two authors impose a reflective direction to their philosophical inquiry, which then focuses on an analysis of the observer-object complex. According to Heelan, this complex expresses itself in a hermeneutic circle of (a) the contextual preconceptions which underpin measurements and (b) the way these preconceptions reciprocally modulate the statement of the resulting experimental outcomes. A correlative feature of this analysis is that in the quantum domain, the subject has to be construed as “embodied”. However, this does not mean that the bodily subject should be naturalized ; rather, it must be taken as a structured precondition of knowledge in the spirit of Husserl and Merleau-Ponty.