Many Worlds?

Everett, Quantum Theory, and Reality
1. Auflage 2010
ISBN: 978-0-19-956056-1
Verlag: OUP Oxford

Buch, Englisch, 640 Seiten, Format (B × H): 161 mm x 240 mm, Gewicht: 1109 g

The first full appraisal of this theory
Collective study of one of one of the most startling theories in modern science
Featuring a stellar line-up of philosophers and physicists

What would it mean to apply quantum theory, without restriction and without involving any notion of measurement and state reduction, to the whole universe? What would realism about the quantum state then imply?

This book brings together an illustrious team of philosophers and physicists to debate these questions. The contributors broadly agree on the need, or aspiration, for a realist theory that unites micro- and macro-worlds. But they disagree on what this implies. Some argue that if unitary quantum evolution has unrestricted application, and if the quantum state is taken to be something physically real, then this universe emerges from the quantum state as one of countless others, constantly branching in time, all of which are real. The result, they argue, is many worlds quantum theory, also known as the Everett interpretation of quantum mechanics. No other realist interpretation of unitary quantum theory has ever been found.

Others argue in reply that this picture of many worlds is in no sense inherent to quantum theory, or fails to make physical sense, or is scientifically inadequate. The stuff of these worlds, what they are made of, is never adequately explained, nor are the worlds precisely defined; ordinary ideas about time and identity over time are compromised; no satisfactory role or substitute for probability can be found in many worlds theories; they can't explain experimental data; anyway, there are attractive realist alternatives to many worlds.

Twenty original essays, accompanied by commentaries and discussions, examine these claims and counterclaims in depth. They consider questions of ontology - the existence of worlds; probability - whether and how probability can be related to the branching structure of the quantum state; alternatives to many worlds - whether there are one-world realist interpretations of quantum theory that leave quantum dynamics unchanged; and open questions even given many worlds, including the multiverse concept as it has arisen elsewhere in modern cosmology. A comprehensive introduction lays out the main arguments of the book, which provides a state-of-the-art guide to many worlds quantum theory and ist problems.

Zielgruppe

Academics teaching and researching in the field of philosophy - especially philosophy of physics, metaphysics, philosophy of science, epistemology, decision theory, and probability theory. Academics teaching and researching in the field of physics - especially quantum mechanics, quantum information, quantum field theory, string theory and cosmology. Also historians of science.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Saunders, Simon

Barrett, Jonathan

Kent, Adrian

Wallace, David

Fachgebiete

• Naturwissenschaften Physik Quantenphysik
• Geisteswissenschaften Philosophie Metaphysik, Ontologie
• Geisteswissenschaften Philosophie Wissenschaftstheorie, Wissenschaftsphilosophie

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Simon Saunders: Many Worlds: an Introduction
1. Why Many Worlds?
1: David Wallace: Decoherence and Ontology
2: Jim Hartle: Quasiclassical Realms
3: Jonathan Halliwell: Macroscopic Superpositions, Decoherent Histories, and the Emergence of Hydrodynamical Behaviour

2. Problems with Ontology
4: Tim Maudlin: Can the world be only wavefunction?
5: John Hawthorne: A metaphysician looks at the Everett interpretation
James Ladyman: Commentary. Reply to Hawthorne: Physics Before Metaphysics
Transcript 1: ontology

3. Probability in the Everett Interpretation
6: Simon Saunders: Chance in the Everett interpretation
7: David Papineau: A Scandal of Probability Theory
8: David Wallace: How to prove the Born rule
9: Hilary Greaves and Wayne Myrvold: Everett and Evidence

4. Critical Replies
10: Adrian Kent: One World versus Many: the Inadequacy of Everettian Accounts of Evolution, Probability, and Scientific Confirmation
11: David Albert: Probability in the Everett picture
12: Huw Price: Decisions, Decisions, Decisions: Can Savage Salvage Everettian Probability?
Transcript 2: Probability

5. Alternatives to Many Worlds
13: Wojciech Zurek: Decoherence, Einselection, Envariance, and Quantum Darwinism: From Relative States to the Existential Interpretation
14: Jeffrey Bub and Itamar Pitowsky: Two dogmas about quantum mechanics
Christopher Timpson: Commentary: Rabid Dogma? Comments on Bub and Pitowsky
15: Rudiger Schack: The Principal Principle and Probability in the Many-Worlds interpretation
16: Antony Valentini: Pilot-wave theory: many worlds in denial?
Harvey Brown: Commentary: Reply to Valentini

6. Not Only Many Worlds
17: Peter Byrne: Everett and Wheeler, the Untold Story
18: David Deutsch: Apart from universes
19: Max Tegmark: Many Worlds in Context
20: Lev Vaidman: Time Symmetry and the Many-Worlds Interpretation
Transcript 3: Not (only) many worlds
Bibliography

Über Autor(innen)

Edited by Simon Saunders, University of Oxford, Jonathan Barrett, University of Bristol, Adrian Kent, University of Cambridge, and David Wallace, University of Oxford

Contributors:
David Albert, Columbia University in New York
Harvey Brown, University of Oxford
Jeffrey Bub, University of Maryland
Peter Byrne
David Deutsch, University of Oxford
Hilary Greaves, University of Oxford
Jonathan Halliwell, Imperial College, London
Jim Hartle, University of California, Santa Barbara
John Hawthorne, University of Oxford
Adrian Kent, University of Cambridge
James Ladyman, University of Bristol
Tim Maudlin, Rutgers University
Wayne Myrvold, University of Western Ontario
David Papineau, King's College London
Itamar Pitowsky, The Hebrew University
Huw Price, University of Sydney
Simon Saunders, University of Oxford
Rudiger Schack, University of Royal Holloway, London
Max Tegmark, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Christopher Timpson, University of Oxford
Lev Vaidman, Tel Aviv University
Antony Valentini, Imperial College, London
David Wallace, University of Oxford
Wojciech Zurek, Los Alamos National Laboratory