Werner Heisenberg - Physics and Beyond: Encounters and Conversations
Werner Heisenberg - Physics and Beyond: Encounters and Conversations
Publisher: Harper&Row | 1971 | ISBN: 0061316229 | DJVU | 268 pages | 2.25 MB
Physics and Beyond contains Heisenberg's most sophisticated statements of his philosophy of quantum theory, and is also a watershed inspiration for the contemporary pragmatist philosophy of science that prevails in academia today.
The mutually contrary philosophies of Einstein and Bohr produced Heisenberg's two inconsistent philosophies of quantum theory. Bohr's influence resulted in Heisenberg's doctrine of closed-off theories in his "Notion of a 'Closed Theory' in Modern Science" in Heisenberg's book titled Across the Frontiers.
Einstein's semantics of observation:
The alternative, which is the contemporary pragmatist philosophy of science, is due to a conversation with Einstein as related in Heisenberg's "Quantum Mechanics and a Talk with Einstein (1925--1926)", the fifth chapter of this book. In this conversation Einstein told Heisenberg that it is the theory that decides what the physicist can observe. This view of the semantics of observation contradicts not only the views of Bohr and the positivists but also Heisenberg's own doctrine of closed-off theories.
In the next chapter, "Fresh Fields (1926-1927)", Heisenberg described his implementation of Einstein's advice: Firstly he reconsidered the idea that what is observed in the cloud chamber is a trajectory, such that the theory that was deciding what is being observed is the Newtonian theory.
Secondly using Einstein's thesis that the theory decides what can be observed, Heisenberg concluded that the processes involved in any experimental observation in microphysics must satisfy the laws of quantum theory. He then derived the mathematics of the uncertainty principle, in which the observations are governed by a limit that is a function of Plank's constant.
Einstein's ontology for relativity:
Heisenberg's re-interpretation is not only semantical but also ontological. He described as the "decisive" step in the development of special relativity, Einstein's rejection of Lorentz's distinction between "apparent time" and "actual time" in the interpretation of the Lorentz transformation equation, and Einstein's taking "apparent time" to be physically real time, while rejecting the Newtonian concept of absolute time as real time.
Heisenberg's scientific realism:
This is a realistic interpretation of relativity theory, and Heisenberg applied it to his quantum theory. Therefore instead of asking himself how he could express in the Newtonian mathematical scheme a given experimental situation, notably the Wilson cloud chamber experiment, Heisenberg asked whether only such experimental situations can arise in nature as can be described in the formalism of his matrix mechanics. The new question is a question about what can arise or exist in reality. Today academic pragmatist philosophers of science call this interpretative practice "scientific realism."
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Werner Heisenberg - Physics and Beyond: Encounters and Conversations
Publisher: Harper&Row | 1971 | ISBN: 0061316229 | DJVU | 268 pages | 2.25 MB
Physics and Beyond contains Heisenberg's most sophisticated statements of his philosophy of quantum theory, and is also a watershed inspiration for the contemporary pragmatist philosophy of science that prevails in academia today.
The mutually contrary philosophies of Einstein and Bohr produced Heisenberg's two inconsistent philosophies of quantum theory. Bohr's influence resulted in Heisenberg's doctrine of closed-off theories in his "Notion of a 'Closed Theory' in Modern Science" in Heisenberg's book titled Across the Frontiers.
Einstein's semantics of observation:
The alternative, which is the contemporary pragmatist philosophy of science, is due to a conversation with Einstein as related in Heisenberg's "Quantum Mechanics and a Talk with Einstein (1925--1926)", the fifth chapter of this book. In this conversation Einstein told Heisenberg that it is the theory that decides what the physicist can observe. This view of the semantics of observation contradicts not only the views of Bohr and the positivists but also Heisenberg's own doctrine of closed-off theories.
In the next chapter, "Fresh Fields (1926-1927)", Heisenberg described his implementation of Einstein's advice: Firstly he reconsidered the idea that what is observed in the cloud chamber is a trajectory, such that the theory that was deciding what is being observed is the Newtonian theory.
Secondly using Einstein's thesis that the theory decides what can be observed, Heisenberg concluded that the processes involved in any experimental observation in microphysics must satisfy the laws of quantum theory. He then derived the mathematics of the uncertainty principle, in which the observations are governed by a limit that is a function of Plank's constant.
Einstein's ontology for relativity:
Heisenberg's re-interpretation is not only semantical but also ontological. He described as the "decisive" step in the development of special relativity, Einstein's rejection of Lorentz's distinction between "apparent time" and "actual time" in the interpretation of the Lorentz transformation equation, and Einstein's taking "apparent time" to be physically real time, while rejecting the Newtonian concept of absolute time as real time.
Heisenberg's scientific realism:
This is a realistic interpretation of relativity theory, and Heisenberg applied it to his quantum theory. Therefore instead of asking himself how he could express in the Newtonian mathematical scheme a given experimental situation, notably the Wilson cloud chamber experiment, Heisenberg asked whether only such experimental situations can arise in nature as can be described in the formalism of his matrix mechanics. The new question is a question about what can arise or exist in reality. Today academic pragmatist philosophers of science call this interpretative practice "scientific realism."
And more...
links:
SharingMatrix
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Uploading
Mirror