The World of Quantum Chaos

Paul Thomas

In my own artistic practice, I have sought to address the complexity of making the invisible visible. This statement is particularly true when it comes to my Quantum Chaos Series. Using a variety of mediums, from computer-based algorithms to traditional painting, I aim to visualise the liminal space dividing the “classical” and quantum worlds. We exist at an everyday level in a world made real by various cognitive systems and approaches to sensation. Yet at the submolecular level, the world of discrete and independent objects and the uncertain world of quantum flux are clearly distinct.

Cole Bernard Cecchetto

W. D. Heiss

Graham P. Collins

P. V. Elyutin

Alisa Bokulich

Classical mechanics and quantum mechanics are two of the most successful scientific theories ever discovered, and yet how they can describe the same world is far from clear: one theory is deterministic, the other indeterministic; one theory describes a world in which chaos is pervasive, the other a world in which chaos is absent. Focusing on the exciting field of 'quantum chaos', this book reveals that there is a subtle and complex relation between classical and quantum mechanics. It challenges the received view that classical and quantum mechanics are incommensurable, and revives another, largely forgotten tradition due to Niels Bohr and Paul Dirac. By artfully weaving together considerations from the history of science, philosophy of science, and contemporary physics, this book offers a new way of thinking about intertheory relations and scientific explanation. It will be of particular interest to historians and philosophers of science, philosophically-inclined physicists, and interested non-specialists.