The contributions of few contemporary scientists have been as far reaching in their effects as those of Nobel Laureate Werner Heisenberg.

Scientific knowledge grows at a phenomenal pace--but few books have had as lasting an impact or played as important a role in our modern world as The Mathematical Theory of Communication, published originally as a paper on communication theory more than fifty years ago. Republished in book form shortly thereafter, it has since gone through four hardcover and sixteen paperback printings. It is a revolutionary work, astounding in its foresight and contemporaneity. The University of Illinois Press is pleased and honored (...) to issue this commemorative reprinting of a classic. (shrink)

In this book, which contains several of his key papers as well as new material, he focuses on the problem of consciousness and explains how quantum mechanics...

Durch eine Untersuchung der Stoßvorgänge wird die Auffassung entwickelt, daß die Quantenmechanik in der Schrödingerschen Form nicht nur die stationären Zustände, sondern auch die Quantensprünge zu beschreiben gestattet.

When the New Organon appeared in 1620, part of a six-part programme of scientific inquiry entitled 'The Great Renewal of Learning', Francis Bacon was at the high point of his political career, and his ambitious work was groundbreaking in its attempt to give formal philosophical shape to a new and rapidly emerging experimentally-based science. Bacon combines theoretical scientific epistemology with examples from applied science, examining phenomena as various as magnetism, gravity, and the ebb and flow of the tides, and anticipating (...) later experimental work by Robert Boyle and others. His work challenges the entire edifice of the philosophy and learning of his time, and has left its mark on all subsequent philosophical discussions of scientific method. This volume presents a new translation of the text into modern English by Michael Silverthorne, and an introduction by Lisa Jardine that sets the work in the context of Bacon's scientific and philosophical activities. (shrink)

Information theory and statistical mechanics II.

Here Roland Omnès offers a clear, up-to-date guide to the conceptual framework of quantum mechanics. In an area that has provoked much philosophical debate, Omnès has achieved high recognition for his Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics (Princeton 1994), a book for specialists. Now the author has transformed his own theory into a short and readable text that enables beginning students and experienced physicists, mathematicians, and philosophers to form a comprehensive picture of the field while learning about the most recent advances. This (...) new book presents a more streamlined version of the Copenhagen interpretation, showing its logical consistency and completeness. The problem of measurement is a major area of inquiry, with the author surveying its history from Planck to Heisenberg before describing the consistent-histories interpretation. He draws upon the most recent research on the decoherence effect (related to the modern resolution of the famous Schrödinger's cat problem) and an exact formulation of the correspondence between quantum and particle physics (implying a derivation of classical determinism from quantum probabilism). Interpretation is organized with the help of a universal and sound language using so-called consistent histories. As a language and a method, it can now be shown to be free of ambiguity and it makes interpretation much clearer and closer to common sense. (shrink)

This book is based on material taught to final-year physics undergraduates as part of the theoretical physics option at Imperial College. After a self-contained introduction to the essential ideas of vector spaces and linear operators, a bridge is built between the concepts and mathematics of classical physics, and the new mathematical framework employed in quantum mechanics. The axioms of nonrelativistic quantum theory are introduced, and shown to lead to a variety of new conceptual problems. Subjects discussed include state-vector reduction, the (...) problem of measurement, quantum entanglement, the Kochen-Specker theorem, and the Bell inequalities. The book includes twenty-five problems with worked solutions. (shrink)

Thermodynamics is the foundation of many of the topics of interest in the religion‐science dialogue. Here a nonmathematical outline of the principles of thermodynamics is presented, providing a historical and conceptually understandable development that can serve teachers from disciplines other than physics. The contributions of Gibbs to both classical and rational thermodynamics, emphasizing the importance of the ensemble in statistical mechanics, are discussed. The seminal ideas of Boltzmann on statistical mechanics are contrasted to those of Gibbs in a discussion of (...) the microscopic interpretation of the second law. The role of information theory is discussed, and the modern ideas of Prigogine and nonequilibrium are outlined in some detail with further reference to the second law. Implications for our interaction with God are considered. (shrink)