Description
Book SynopsisThis volume provides a sample of the present research on the foundations of quantum mechanics and related topics by collecting the papers of the Italian scholars who attended the conference entitled “The Foundations of Quantum Mechanics — Historical Analysis and Open Questions” (Lecce, 1998). The perspective of the book is interdisciplinary, and hence philosophical, historical and technical papers are gathered together so as to allow the reader to compare different viewpoints and cultural approaches. Most of the papers confront, directly or indirectly, the objectivity problem, taking into account the positions of the founders of QM or more recent developments. More specifically, the technical papers in the book pay special attention to the interpretation of the experiments on Bell's inequalities and to decoherence theory, but topics on unsharp QM, the consistent-history approach, quantum probability and alternative theories are also discussed. Furthermore, a number of historical and philosophical papers are devoted to Planck's, Weyl's and Pauli's thought, but topics such as quantum ontology, predictivity of quantum laws, etc., are treated.
Table of ContentsKaons and Bell's inequality, A. Afriat; an outline of an interpretation of quantum mechanics, G. Auletta; classical limit - localization induced by noise, P. Blanchard et al; quantum mechanics - the real and the possible, G. Boscarino; on the decoherence of a free semiclassical positronium, B. Carazza; quantum mechanics without waves, M. Cini; natural kinds and concepts of physics, V. Fano; is quantum mechanics contextual? C. Garola; the evolution of the concept of correlation function in the researches on Einstein locality, A. Garuccio; objective quantum description of macroscopic system, L. Lanz; Bell inequalities and correlation experiments - a purely particle statistical investigation, M. Minozzo; random path interpretation of quantum mechanics, M. Roncadelli; information and state correlations from classical to quantum physics - the foundations issue, A. Rossi; physical meaning of Bell type inequalities, F. Selleri. (Part contents)
