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Quantum Theory, Causation and Determinism Reference Books

 
 
Reply Sat 4 Apr, 2009 01:28 pm
Does anyone know of any good books or website, especially books, on the topics of Quantum Theory, Quantum theory and Determinism and Quantum Causality and general causality?
have some science books on Quantum Theory, such as "A Briefer History of Time", "The Universe in a Nutshell" and "Quantum Theory Can't Hurt You". But I haven't got any directly linking it to philosophy or causality only determinism, and I need to write a 400 word essay which will hopefully be on the effects of Quantum Theory on Causality and Determinsm.
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Bones-O
 
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Reply Wed 8 Apr, 2009 08:03 am
@Darunia9,
Well, I've got lots of books but they're pretty mathematical so I won't recommend them. I can point you in the direction of specific QM phenomena that relate to causality and determinism though which will help you nail down which bits to read.

1. Collapse of the wavefunction (e.g. Schrodinger's cat, the measurement problem).
2. Superposition principle (specifically the Stern-Garlach experiment).
3. Entanglement (spin-pairs, Bell's inequalities).
4. The correspondance principle (how the causal, deterministic world arrives out of quantum indeterminacy, the Copenhagen interpretation, the classical limit).
5. The Born interpretation (how wavefunctions relate to probability).
6. Uncertainty (as in Heisenberg's principle).
7. Virtual particles (e.g. 'uncaused' virtual pair creation, the Casimir effect).
8. The double-slit experiment (demonstration of how statistical patterns arise from indeterministic events).

Also look for something that describes how when we try to extrapolate past events from the present ones (i.e. doing determinism backwards to uncover the past), there is no indeterminacy, suggesting that causality holds 100% in QM.
Darunia9
 
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Reply Wed 8 Apr, 2009 12:19 pm
@Bones-O,
Wow, thanks for that. That's great, I knew some of those but only a few. I'll look into those in my current books. I also found a book called Beyond Measure: Modern Physics, Philosophy and the Meaning of Qauntum Theory, which should help and another Quantum Philosophy book which I'm getting from a library.
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