What do you think?
Rate this book
Understanding Quantum Mechanics
Here Roland Omn�s offers a clear, up-to-date guide to the conceptual framework of quantum mechanics. In an area that has provoked much philosophical debate, Omn�s has achieved high recognition for his Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics (Princeton 1994), a book for specialists. Now the author has transformed his own theory into a short and readable text that enables beginning students and experienced physicists, mathematicians, and philosophers to form a comprehensive picture of the field while learning about the most recent advances.
This new book presents a more streamlined version of the Copenhagen interpretation, showing its logical consistency and completeness. The problem of measurement is a major area of inquiry, with the author surveying its history from Planck to Heisenberg before describing the consistent-histories interpretation. He draws upon the most recent research on the decoherence effect (related to the modern resolution of the famous Schr�dinger's cat problem) and an exact formulation of the correspondence between quantum and particle physics (implying a derivation of classical determinism from quantum probabilism).
Interpretation is organized with the help of a universal and sound language using so-called consistent histories. As a language and a method, it can now be shown to be free of ambiguity and it makes interpretation much clearer and closer to common sense.
This new book presents a more streamlined version of the Copenhagen interpretation, showing its logical consistency and completeness. The problem of measurement is a major area of inquiry, with the author surveying its history from Planck to Heisenberg before describing the consistent-histories interpretation. He draws upon the most recent research on the decoherence effect (related to the modern resolution of the famous Schr�dinger's cat problem) and an exact formulation of the correspondence between quantum and particle physics (implying a derivation of classical determinism from quantum probabilism).
Interpretation is organized with the help of a universal and sound language using so-called consistent histories. As a language and a method, it can now be shown to be free of ambiguity and it makes interpretation much clearer and closer to common sense.
328 pages, Kindle Edition
First published May 1, 1903
2 people are currently reading
103 people want to read
About the author
Roland Omnès
17 books9 followersRoland Omnès is the author of several books which aim to close the gap between our common sense experience of the classical world and the complex, formal mathematics which is now required to accurately describe reality at its most fundamental level.
Omnès is currently Professor Emeritus of Theoretical Physics in the Faculté des sciences at Orsay, at the Université Paris-Sud XI. He has been instrumental in developing the consistent histories and quantum decoherence approaches in quantum mechanics.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roland_O...
Omnès is currently Professor Emeritus of Theoretical Physics in the Faculté des sciences at Orsay, at the Université Paris-Sud XI. He has been instrumental in developing the consistent histories and quantum decoherence approaches in quantum mechanics.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roland_O...
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 of 1 review
January 12, 2009
if only all physics textbooks followed this scheme: about 40% history/ narrative/ philosophy/ background/ discussion/ motivation/ humor and about 60% hardcore equation-intensive derivation. rather like the feynman lectures.
a good portion of the math was beyond me, and he does a LOT of hand-waving in his proofs, but he basically says each time "look, if you want to see the nitty-gritty, all the detailed proofs are in my previous book, so i'll just outline the steps here." so next up is his first book, The Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics.
decoherence is shown to occur on a very short timescale, like 10^-29 s for macroscopic objects. thus the schrodinger's cat paradox is completely solved. by far the most exciting thing about decoherence is that wavefunction reduction is no longer necessary.
he does mention gravitation and general relativity a tiny bit this time round, but basically neglects any real discussion of time, which would be my only gripe. ultimately, i guess he feels the effects are negligible at this point in history, so there's no point worrying about them. if one day in the future physicists can do an experiment on quantum gravity scales, then perhaps all our current methods for QM will be shown to be an approximation to something wildly different. he has no problem with that possibility. but his goal is understanding QM as it stands now, since it works flawlessly for any experiment we can now do.
i'm glad i read the griffiths book Consistent Quantum Theory before this one, since that book explains the histories approach in great detail.
a good portion of the math was beyond me, and he does a LOT of hand-waving in his proofs, but he basically says each time "look, if you want to see the nitty-gritty, all the detailed proofs are in my previous book, so i'll just outline the steps here." so next up is his first book, The Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics.
decoherence is shown to occur on a very short timescale, like 10^-29 s for macroscopic objects. thus the schrodinger's cat paradox is completely solved. by far the most exciting thing about decoherence is that wavefunction reduction is no longer necessary.
he does mention gravitation and general relativity a tiny bit this time round, but basically neglects any real discussion of time, which would be my only gripe. ultimately, i guess he feels the effects are negligible at this point in history, so there's no point worrying about them. if one day in the future physicists can do an experiment on quantum gravity scales, then perhaps all our current methods for QM will be shown to be an approximation to something wildly different. he has no problem with that possibility. but his goal is understanding QM as it stands now, since it works flawlessly for any experiment we can now do.
i'm glad i read the griffiths book Consistent Quantum Theory before this one, since that book explains the histories approach in great detail.
Displaying 1 of 1 review