Seeking 'pictures of reality' beneath the surface of quantum theory may seem anathema to those who concur with Niels Bohr's authoritative remark: '... in the general problem of quantum theory, one is faced ... with an essential failure of the pictures in space and time on which the description of natural phenomena has hitherto been based'. Nevertheless, in the last few decades there has been a resurgence of interest in salvaging from the theory at least some picture of how the microphysical world is, however counterintuitive that may be.
Seeking 'pictures of reality' beneath the surface of quantum theory may seem anathema to those who concur with Niels Bohr's authoritative remark: '... in the general problem of quantum theory, one is faced ... with an essential failure of the pictures in space and time on which the description of natural phenomena has hitherto been based'. Nevertheless, in the last few decades there has been a resurgence of interest in salvaging from the theory at least some picture of how the microphysical world is, however counterintuitive that may be.
Abstract Quantum theory has presented scientists and philosophers of science with a series of perplexing questions. It seems to many that any attempt to comprehend a world described by quantum theory will require revision in our understanding of the nature of things far more radical than the revision in our understanding of the nature of space and time demanded by the theories of relativity. It has been claimed that to comprehend quantum theory we must revise our very understanding of such matters as the objective nature of reality and its independence from our perception of it, the nature of a complex system and its relation to its components, and the nature of causal and other kinds of determination in the world.
“Anyone who is not shocked by quantum theory has not understood it.” Since Niels Bohr said this many years ago, quantum mechanics has only been getting more shocking. We now realize that it’s not really telling us that “weird” things happen out of sight, on the tiniest level, in the atomic world. Rather, we can now see that everything is quantum: our everyday world is simply what quantum becomes at the human scale. But if quantum mechanics is right, what seems obvious and right in our everyday world is built on foundations that don’t seems obvious or right—or even possible. An exhilarating tour of the contemporary quantum landscape, Beyond Weird is a book about what quantum physics really means—and what it doesn’t. Science writer Philip Ball offers an up-to-date, accessible account of the quest to come to grips with the most fundamental theory of physical reality, and to explain how its counterintuitive principles underpin the world we experience. Over the past decade it has become clear that quantum physics is less a theory about particles and waves, uncertainty and fuzziness, than a theory about information and knowledge—about what can be known, and how we know it. Discoveries and experiments over the past few decades have called into question the meanings and limits of space and time, cause and effect, and, ultimately, of knowledge itself. The quantum world Ball shows us isn’t a different world. It is our world, and if anything deserves to be called “weird,” it’s us.
On August 15, 1932 Niels Bohr gave opening address of International Congress on Therapy held in Copenhagen. Bohr's title was Light and Life, and his purpose was to draw attention to epistemological implications for life sciences of fundamental changes that quantum theory had brought to conception of natural law (Bohr 1933). He thought that these changes, which extend to very idea of nature of scientific explanation, were important not only for a full appreciation of new situation brought to physics by quantum theory. According to Bohr, these developments had also created an entirely new background for viewing problems of biology, especially as concerns our views on position of living organisms in realm of natural science. In particular, Bohr proposed that notion of complementarity, which he had first presented 5 years earlier at International Congress of Physics in Como, relevant also for physiological and psychological aspects of life. Bohr began his address by stating what nowadays stigmatized as reductionist credo, namely that subtle character of riddle of life notwithstanding, any scientific explanation of biological phenomena necessarily must consist of reducing description of more complex phenomena to that of simpler ones. But, Bohr continued, discovery of an essential limitation of mechanical description of natural phenomena, as revealed by recent development of atomic theory, has lent new interest to old problem of how far program of reductive biological explanations can be carried. Bohr then presented a brief historical account of rise of quantum theory in connection with study of light, which he thought is perhaps least complex of all physical phenomena. Yet, it turned out that despite its lack of complexity, phenomenon of light cannot be given a coherent mechanical explanation, inasmuch as from viewpoint of classical physical theories, the quantum of action . . . must be considered as an irrational notion. The spatial continuity of light propagation, on one hand, and atomicity of light effects on other hand, must, therefore, be considered as complementary aspects of one reality, in sense that each expresses an important feature of phenomena of light. Those aspects are complementary, because, although they are conceptually irreconcilable from a mechanical point of view, they can never be shown to be in direct, or empirical, contradiction. The reason for this that any closer analysis of either wave aspect or particle aspect of light demands mutually exclusive observational arrangements.
On August 15, 1932 Niels Bohr gave opening address of International Congress on Therapy held in Copenhagen. Bohr's title was Light and Life, and his purpose was to draw attention to epistemological implications for life sciences of fundamental changes that quantum theory had brought to conception of natural law (Bohr 1933). He thought that these changes, which extend to very idea of nature of scientific explanation, were important not only for a full appreciation of new situation brought to physics by quantum theory. According to Bohr, these developments had also created an entirely new background for viewing problems of biology, especially as concerns our views on position of living organisms in realm of natural science. In particular, Bohr proposed that notion of complementarity, which he had first presented 5 years earlier at International Congress of Physics in Como, relevant also for physiological and psychological aspects of life. Bohr began his address by stating what nowadays stigmatized as reductionist credo, namely that subtle character of riddle of life notwithstanding, any scientific explanation of biological phenomena necessarily must consist of reducing description of more complex phenomena to that of simpler ones. But, Bohr continued, discovery of an essential limitation of mechanical description of natural phenomena, as revealed by recent development of atomic theory, has lent new interest to old problem of how far program of reductive biological explanations can be carried. Bohr then presented a brief historical account of rise of quantum theory in connection with study of light, which he thought is perhaps least complex of all physical phenomena. Yet, it turned out that despite its lack of complexity, phenomenon of light cannot be given a coherent mechanical explanation, inasmuch as from viewpoint of classical physical theories, the quantum of action . . . must be considered as an irrational notion. The spatial continuity of light propagation, on one hand, and atomicity of light effects on other hand, must, therefore, be considered as complementary aspects of one reality, in sense that each expresses an important feature of phenomena of light. Those aspects are complementary, because, although they are conceptually irreconcilable from a mechanical point of view, they can never be shown to be in direct, or empirical, contradiction. The reason for this that any closer analysis of either wave aspect or particle aspect of light demands mutually exclusive observational arrangements.