Hugo Holbling

Perhaps some of you in this forum can help me? I'm looking for a textbook on the quantum theory that includes the history of the subject and - hopefully - some consideration of the philosophical aspects too. Thus far i've been unable to find anything that fits the bill. I already have D'Agostino's history and some epistemological papers, but what i'm really after would include both with the mathematics and other areas. It doesn't matter how deep the textbook is as i can follow the subject well enough. I'm especially interested in the turn of the twentieth century work and its development.

Can anyone help or offer some suggestions?

xorbie

How mathematical do you want it? I would wager that the more technical a book was, the less philosophy it would discuss. Three books I would check out are:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg...lance&n=507846
This one is actually not just quantum physics, but is a REALLY good book about science and philosophy, and does touch on QM here and there.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg...glance&s=books
This one is a discussion of QM and some of its interesting implications. It is pretty non-technical (no actual math involved) but is a decent summary and does go into some philosophy.

If you are looking for more philosophy-type things, there are a whole lot on the mystical implications of QM and a whole lot of Taoist and Buddhist writers have written on how QM seems to justify their beliefs. Interesting stuff, even though I haven't had time to really check any of them up.

I have heard this one is good, and might check it out myself:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg...glance&s=books

(feel free to edit the links so that IIDB makes money)

Joel

Hugo Holbling

Thanks for the recommendations, Joel.

That's the problem. Is there a textbook that covers both with the history too, or will i just have to write it myself?

Tetlepanquetzatzin

A typical textbook on QM contains an introductory chapter discussing some history (Planck's model for black-body radiation, de Broglie's matter waves, etc.). Many textbooks also contains a brief discussion of the philosophical intrepretations of QM. Alastair Rae has written a nice introductory book covering the wave function formalism as well as the usual historical chapter and a chapter at the end about intrepretations. I no longer remember the title (probably "Quantum Mechanics" or "Introduction to Quantum Mechanics"). A very solid introduction to the physics of QM is Bransden & Joachain's "Quantum Mechanics". It covers the bra-ket formalism, lots of physics, as well as the usual historical chapter and a very brief discussion of interpretations. I believe one of the most well-respected philosophical discussions is Bernard d'Espagnat's "Veiled Reality", which assumes familiarity with the bra-ket formalism and discusses all the main interpretations in detail (it's not a physics textbook, though).

Friar Bellows

For me it's hard to go past:

The Philosophy of Quantum Mechanics: The Interpretations of Quantum Mechanics in Historical Perspective by Max Jammer.

Jammer has written many books on the philosophy (and history) of various concepts in physics, and this one is probably his best. It's very difficult to find it, though. You might try a university library.

Other books which will help you understand the theory better are:

Principles of Quantum Mechanics by Paul Dirac
Quantum Theory by David Bohm

Hugo Holbling

Thanks for the excellent recommendations. I'll likely get all of them to add to my library but if you happen to see a copy of Jammer for under US$130, please let me know...

fando

Hey, if you have a physics background, you can pick up Cohen-Tannoudji, Dieu and Laloe's "Quantum Mechanics" textbooks. Let me quote the blurb on the back:

The reason I recommend this book is because it does an excellent job of presenting historical context and rationale for the various topics. It is almost as good as Thorne and Wheeler's Gravitation for General Relativity.

You'll need multivariable calculus and a prior QM course to really pursue this (I used Liboff, which is not what you're looking for ). Tensors are used early. In my opinion, there is no better resource for understanding the issues and principles of QM than an actual course textbook (and course). It is also my opinion that a serious understanding of QM cannot be obtained without the math.

xorbie

I'll be taking a class next semester with an intro to QM, but I would be willing to wager the texbook sucks. I can ask the professor I am doing research with about the textbooks and get back to you tomorrow, but it seems like the good fellas at IIDB have already covered it pretty well.

Joel

Hugo Holbling

I would still appreciate your help, Joel, if you don't mind; you're very kind. I'm trying to get hold of fando's recommendation too, so thanks all-round.

Starboy

Hugo, I applaud your goal of actually knowing something about reality. I think though that if you want to provide "pure" grist for your philosophical mill, you should skip the philosophy of QM and concentrate on the theory itself. As a philosopher you might find Dirac’s book interesting “Principles of Quantum Mechanics”. It is full of math but not the applied kind, more of the type that a philosopher might be able to relate to. For pure physical understanding you can’t beat Feynman. His book “QED” is a good example of the physicist’s physical understanding of things. Also if you have access to a kiddy physics lab you might want to actually lay hands on reality and play with the demonstration experiments. The brain and the hand are connected to understanding in a way that the mind will never understand.

Starboy