Reading Bohr: Physics and Philosophy - Plotnitsky, Arkady

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Résumé :
Reading Bohr: Physics and Philosophy offers a new perspective on Niels Bohr's interpretation of quantum mechanics as complementarity, and on the relationships between physics and philosophy in Bohr's work, which has had momentous significance for our understanding of quantum theory and of the nature of knowledge in general. Philosophically, the book reassesses Bohr's place in the Western philosophical tradition, from Kant and Hegel on. Physically, it reconsiders the main issues at stake in the Bohr-Einstein confrontation and in the ongoing debates concerning quantum physics. It also devotes greater attention than in most commentaries on Bohr to the key developments and transformations of his thinking concerning complementarity. Most significant among them were those that occurred, first, under the impact of Bohr's exchanges with Einstein and, second, under the impact of developments in quantum theory itself, both quantum mechanics and quantum field theory. The importance of quantum field theory for Bohr's thinking has not been adequately addressed in the literature on Bohr, to the considerable detriment to our understanding of the history of quantum physics. Filling this lacuna is one of the main contributions of the book, which also enables us to show why quantum field theory compels us to move beyond Bohr without, however, simply leaving him behind.

Biographie:
Arkady Plotnitsky is a distinguished professor at Purdue University, where he teaches in the Literature, Theory and Cultural Studies Program and the Philosophy and Literature Program. He received his M.S. in Mathematics from Leningrad (now St. Petersburg) State University, and his PhD in Literary Theory from the University of Pennsylvania. Before coming to Purdue, he taught at the University of Pennsylvania and Duke University. He has been awarded fellowships at Duke, Utah, Vanderbilt and Oregon State Universities, and was twice a short-term visitor at the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics. His extensive publications on the philosophy of physics and Modernism, and on the relationships among literature, philosophy, and science, include eight books, two hundred articles and, as editor/coeditor, eight volumes of essays and journal issues. He has given about one hundred invited plenary lectures and presented over three hundred papers at international conferences. His most recent book is The Principles of Quantum Theory, from Planck's Quantum to the Higgs Boson: The Nature of Quantum Reality and the Spirit of Copenhagen (Springer, 2016). ...

Sommaire:
Reading Bohr: Physics and Philosophy offers a new perspective on Niels Bohr's interpretation of quantum mechanics as complementarity, and on the relationships between physics and philosophy in Bohr's work, which has had momentous significance for our understanding of quantum theory and of the nature of knowledge in general. Philosophically, the book reassesses Bohr's place in the Western philosophical tradition, from Kant and Hegel on. Physically, it reconsiders the main issues at stake in the Bohr-Einstein confrontation and in the ongoing debates concerning quantum physics. It also devotes greater attention than in most commentaries on Bohr to the key developments and transformations of his thinking concerning complementarity. Most significant among them were those that occurred, first, under the impact of Bohr's exchanges with Einstein and, second, under the impact of developments in quantum theory itself, both quantum mechanics and quantum field theory. The importance of quantum field theory for Bohr's thinking has not been adequately addressed in the literature on Bohr, to the considerable detriment to our understanding of the history of quantum physics. Filling this lacuna is one of the main contributions of the book, which also enables us to show why quantum field theory compels us to move beyond Bohr without, however, simply leaving him behind....