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    Quantum Mechanics and Experience
    Quantum Mechanics and Experience
    Quantum Mechanics and Experience
    Ebook204 pages4 hours

    Quantum Mechanics and Experience

    By David Z Albert

    3.5/5

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    About this ebook

    The more science tells us about the world, the stranger it looks. Ever since physics first penetrated the atom, early in this century, what it found there has stood as a radical and unanswered challenge to many of our most cherished conceptions of nature. It has literally been called into question since then whether or not there are always objective matters of fact about the whereabouts of subatomic particles, or about the locations of tables and chairs, or even about the very contents of our thoughts. A new kind of uncertainty has become a principle of science.

    This book is an original and provocative investigation of that challenge, as well as a novel attempt at writing about science in a style that is simultaneously elementary and deep. It is a lucid and self-contained introduction to the foundations of quantum mechanics, accessible to anyone with a high school mathematics education, and at the same time a rigorous discussion of the most important recent advances in our understanding of that subject, some of which are due to the author himself.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarvard University Press
    Release dateJul 1, 2009
    ISBN9780674020146
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    Reviews for Quantum Mechanics and Experience

    3.5/5

    20 ratings2 reviews

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    • 1/5
      The most exasperating book I have ever tried to read. Forget that the math is beyond me; I could skim through that if the writer had even the remotest idea about how to construct a clear English sentence. (A previous review has a dead-on imitation of the type of paragraph you find over and over here.) Contrary to the book flap which hilariously states, "...as well as a novel attempt at writing about science in a style that is simultaneously elementary and deep," this book is almost gibberish in its incessant use of parentheticals, interjected remarks, and endless footnotes at the bottom of each page that often continue to the next page. If Albert speaks this way when he teaches, I'm surprised he isn't bruised from having things thrown at him.
    • 4/5
      This book is a great introduction to the mathematics of quantum mechanics. It has a good analysis of several different interpretations of the mechanics, and is written in a pretty colloquial style.Or, to put it the way it would have been in the book...This book (Quantum Mechanics and Experience) is a great introduction to the mathematics (the whole system, as it were) of quantum mechanics. It (the book, written by David Albert) has a good (as far as it goes) analysis of several different (possibly not empirically different in practice, by largely empirically differentiable in principle) interpretations of the mechanics (the quantum mechanical formalism, that is), and is written in a pretty colloquial style (which is to say, using terms like "color" or "hardness" instead of spin in order to reach a larger audience in a more intuitive way).

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