Quanta, Logic And Spacetime (2nd Edition)

Quanta, Logic And Spacetime (2nd Edition)
Author: Stephen A Selesnick
Publisher: World Scientific
Total Pages: 487
Release: 2003-12-04
Genre: Mathematics
ISBN: 9814483621

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In this expanded edition of Quanta, Logic and Spacetime, the logical base is greatly broadened and quantum-computational aspects of the approach are brought to the fore. The first two parts of this edition may indeed be regarded as providing a self-contained and logic-based foundation for — and an introduction to — the enterprise known as quantum computing.The rest of the work takes on the task (as in the first edition) of computing from first principles certain dynamical expressions which turn out to compare favorably with the Lagrangian densities of the (massless) Standard Model, including gravity. The logic of this process is now subject to greater formal rigor than was possible in the first edition, and the central thesis — that quantum physics at a fundamental level may itself be realized as a species of quantum computation — is strongly underscored.

Quanta, Logic And Spacetime: Variations On Finkelstein's Quantum Relativity

Quanta, Logic And Spacetime: Variations On Finkelstein's Quantum Relativity
Author: Selesnick Steve A
Publisher: World Scientific
Total Pages: 284
Release: 1998-03-12
Genre: Science
ISBN: 9814496979

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In this highly interesting monograph, a brief account of Finkelstein's approach to quantum theory and some of its ramifications is given. Specifically, his suggestion that some sort of quantum-set-like structure should underlie our macroscopic perception of spacetime is developed to the point where a fair slice of fundamental physics (for a massless world) may be formally derived in an elementary fashion from the ground up. In detail, a model of what Finkelstein has dubbed a “quantum net”, in conjunction with a carefully and extensively articulated correspondence principle, gives rise to the standard Lagrangians for: massless Dirac fermions, general relativity, and Yang-Mills fields for the gauge groups, U(1) x SU(2), and SU(3). These Lagrangians emerge replete with (Feynman) gauge-fixing terms and ghost fields, and a chiral breaking mechanism in the case of SU(2). The results are interpreted in the light of the Standard Model.

Modern Differential Geometry in Gauge Theories

Modern Differential Geometry in Gauge Theories
Author: Anastasios Mallios
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages: 244
Release: 2009-10-22
Genre: Mathematics
ISBN: 0817646345

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Original, well-written work of interest Presents for the first time (physical) field theories written in sheaf-theoretic language Contains a wealth of minutely detailed, rigorous computations, ususally absent from standard physical treatments Author's mastery of the subject and the rigorous treatment of this text make it invaluable

Physics and Speculative Philosophy

Physics and Speculative Philosophy
Author: Timothy E. Eastman
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
Total Pages: 282
Release: 2016-02-22
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 3110451816

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Through both an historical and philosophical analysis of the concept of possibility, we show how including both potentiality and actuality as part of the real is both compatible with experience and contributes to solving key problems of fundamental process and emergence. The book is organized into four main sections that incorporate our routes to potentiality: (1) potentiality in modern science [history and philosophy; quantum physics and complexity]; (2) Relational Realism [ontological interpretation of quantum physics; philosophy and logic]; (3) Process Physics [ontological interpretation of relativity theory; physics and philosophy]; (4) on speculative philosophy and physics [limitations and approximations; process philosophy]. We conclude that certain fundamental problems in modern physics require complementary analyses of certain philosophical and metaphysical issues, and that such scholarship reveals intrinsic features and limits of determinism, potentiality and emergence that enable, among others, important progress on the quantum theory of measurement problem and new understandings of emergence.

Foundations of Relational Realism

Foundations of Relational Realism
Author: Michael Epperson
Publisher: Lexington Books
Total Pages: 441
Release: 2013-06-20
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0739180339

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If there is a central conceptual framework that has reliably borne the weight of modern physics as it ascends into the twenty-first century, it is the framework of quantum mechanics. Because of its enduring stability in experimental application, physics has today reached heights that not only inspire wonder, but arguably exceed the limits of intuitive vision, if not intuitive comprehension. For many physicists and philosophers, however, the currently fashionable tendency toward exotic interpretation of the theoretical formalism is recognized not as a mark of ascent for the tower of physics, but rather an indicator of sway—one that must be dampened rather than encouraged if practical progress is to continue. In this unique two-part volume, designed to be comprehensible to both specialists and non-specialists, the authors chart out a pathway forward by identifying the central deficiency in most interpretations of quantum mechanics: That in its conventional, metrical depiction of extension, inherited from the Enlightenment, objects are characterized as fundamental to relations—i.e., such that relations presuppose objects but objects do not presuppose relations. The authors, by contrast, argue that quantum mechanics exemplifies the fact that physical extensiveness is fundamentally topological rather than metrical, with its proper logico-mathematical framework being category theoretic rather than set theoretic. By this thesis, extensiveness fundamentally entails not only relations of objects, but also relations of relations. Thus, the fundamental quanta of quantum physics are properly defined as units of logico-physical relation rather than merely units of physical relata as is the current convention. Objects are always understood as relata, and likewise relations are always understood objectively. In this way, objects and relations are coherently defined as mutually implicative. The conventional notion of a history as “a story about fundamental objects” is thereby reversed, such that the classical “objects” become the story by which we understand physical systems that are fundamentally histories of quantum events. These are just a few of the novel critical claims explored in this volume—claims whose exemplification in quantum mechanics will, the authors argue, serve more broadly as foundational principles for the philosophy of nature as it evolves through the twenty-first century and beyond.

Differential Sheaves And Connections: A Natural Approach To Physical Geometry

Differential Sheaves And Connections: A Natural Approach To Physical Geometry
Author: Anastasios Mallios
Publisher: World Scientific
Total Pages: 302
Release: 2015-09-17
Genre: Mathematics
ISBN: 981471948X

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This unique book provides a self-contained conceptual and technical introduction to the theory of differential sheaves. This serves both the newcomer and the experienced researcher in undertaking a background-independent, natural and relational approach to 'physical geometry'. In this manner, this book is situated at the crossroads between the foundations of mathematical analysis with a view toward differential geometry and the foundations of theoretical physics with a view toward quantum mechanics and quantum gravity. The unifying thread is provided by the theory of adjoint functors in category theory and the elucidation of the concepts of sheaf theory and homological algebra in relation to the description and analysis of dynamically constituted physical geometric spectrums.

Concept and Formalization of Constellatory Self-Unfolding

Concept and Formalization of Constellatory Self-Unfolding
Author: Albrecht von Müller
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 235
Release: 2018-05-29
Genre: Science
ISBN: 3319897764

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This volume offers a fundamentally different way of conceptualizing time and reality. Today, we see time predominantly as the linear-sequential order of events, and reality accordingly as consisting of facts that can be ordered along sequential time. But what if this conceptualization has us mistaking the “exhausts” for the “real thing”, i.e. if we miss the best, the actual taking place of reality as it occurs in a very differently structured, primordial form of time, the time-space of the present? In this new conceptual framework, both the sequential aspect of time and the factual aspect of reality are emergent phenomena that come into being only after reality has actually taken place. In the new view, facts are just the “traces” that the actual taking place of reality leaves behind on the co-emergent “canvas’’ of local spacetime. Local spacetime itself emerges only as facts come into being – and only facts can be adequately localized in it. But, how does reality then actually occur? It is conceived as a “constellatory self-unfolding”, characterized by strong self-referentiality, and taking place in the primordial form of time, the not yet sequentially structured “time-space of the present”. Time is seen here as an ontophainetic platform, i.e. as the stage on which reality can first occur. This view of time (and, thus, also space) seems to be very much in accordance with what we encounter in quantum physics before the so-called collapse of the wave function. In parallel, classical and relativistic physics largely operate within the factual portrait of reality, and the sequential aspect of time, respectively. Only singularities constitute an important exemption: here the canvas of local spacetime – that emerged together with factization – melts down again. In the novel framework quantum reduction and singularities can be seen and addressed as inverse transitions: In quantum physical state reduction reality “gains” the chrono-ontological format of facticity, and the sequential aspect of time becomes applicable. In singularities, by contrast, the inverse happens: Reality loses its local spacetime formation and reverts back into its primordial, pre-local shape – making in this way the use of causality relations, Boolean logic and the dichotomization of subject and object obsolete. For our understanding of the relation between quantum and relativistic physics this new view opens up fundamentally new perspectives: Both are legitimate views of time and reality, they just address very different chrono-ontological portraits, and thus should not lead us to erroneously subjugating one view under the other. The task of the book is to provide a formal framework in which this radically different view of time and reality can be addressed properly. The mathematical approach is based on the logical and topological features of the Borromean Rings. It draws upon concepts and methods of algebraic and geometric topology – especially the theory of sheaves and links, group theory, logic and information theory, in relation to the standard constructions employed in quantum mechanics and general relativity, shedding new light on the pestilential problems of their compatibility. The intended audience includes physicists, mathematicians and philosophers with an interest in the conceptual and mathematical foundations of modern physics.

Quips, Quotes And Quanta: An Anecdotal History Of Physics (2nd Edition)

Quips, Quotes And Quanta: An Anecdotal History Of Physics (2nd Edition)
Author: Anton Z Capri
Publisher: World Scientific Publishing Company
Total Pages: 252
Release: 2011-05-31
Genre: Science
ISBN: 9813100664

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When a ship's surgeon during a routine episode of bloodletting noticed that the sailors' blood was brighter in the tropics than in the north, he hypothesized that heat was a form of energy.When a young boy tried to visualize what a beam of light would look like by riding alongside it at the same speed, he began thinking along lines that eventually changed our views of space and time.When a student caught hay fever and went to recover on Heligoland, he started a major revolution in physics. These are but just some of the stories covered in this entertaining book that deals with the history of physics from the end of the 19th-century to about 1930.Quips, Quotes and Quanta (2nd Edition) is unique in that it contains anecdotes on physicists creating new ideas. Often the thinking of the creators of what is now called “modern physics” is revealed through quotes. Thematic and biographical in nature, this book also includes many personal incidents.This second edition has been revised to include new material: a prologue, epilogue, glossary and chronology, and photographs as well as additional quotes and anecdotes.

The Asymmetric Nature of Time

The Asymmetric Nature of Time
Author: Vincent Grandjean
Publisher: Springer Nature
Total Pages: 224
Release: 2022-09-21
Genre: Science
ISBN: 3031097637

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This open access monograph offers a detailed study and a systematic defense of a key intuition we typically have, as human beings, with respect to the nature of time: the intuition that the future is open, whereas the past is fixed. For example, whereas it seems unsettled whether there will be a fourth world war, it is settled that there was a first world war. The book contributes, in particular, three major and original insights. First, it provides a coherent, non-metaphorical, and metaphysically illuminating elucidation of the intuition. Second, it determines which model of the temporal structure of the world is most appropriate to accommodate the intuition, and settles on a specific version of the Growing Block Theory of time (GBT). Third, it puts forward a naturalistic foundation for GBT, by exploiting recent results of our best physics (viz. General Relativity, Quantum Mechanics, and Quantum Gravity). Three main challenges are addressed: the dismissal of temporal asymmetries as non-fundamental phenomena only (e.g., thermodynamic or causal phenomena), the epistemic objection against GBT, and the apparent tension between GBT and relativistic physics. It is argued that the asymmetry between the open future and the fixed past must be grounded in the temporal structure of the world, and that this is neither precluded by our epistemic device, nor by the latest approaches to Quantum Gravity (​e.g., the Causal Set Theory). Aiming at reconciling time as we find it in ordinary experience and time as physics describes it, this ​innovative book ​will raise the interest of both academic researchers and ​graduate students working on the philosophy of time. More generally, it ​presents contents of interest for all metaphysicians and non-dogmatic philosophers of physics. This is an open access book.

Space, Time and Quanta

Space, Time and Quanta
Author: Robert Mills
Publisher: W. H. Freeman
Total Pages: 416
Release: 1994-04-15
Genre: Science
ISBN: 9780716724360

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