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Consistent Quantum Theory
This volume elucidates the consistent quantum theory approach to quantum mechanics at a level accessible to university students in physics, chemistry, mathematics, and computer science, making this an ideal supplement to standard textbooks. Griffiths provides a clear explanation of points not yet adequately treated in traditional texts and which students find confusing, as do their teachers. The book will also be of interest to physicists and philosophers working on the foundations of quantum mechanics.
408 pages, Paperback
First published November 28, 2001
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December 2, 2008
worth its weight in gold. roland omnes did not steer me wrong. if 50 years hence, robert griffiths is mentioned alongside schrodinger, heisenberg, and bohr, i will not be surprised. maybe he's wrong, but even so that would not prevent this from being a work of genius. every physics undergrad should be handed this book at the end of junior year and told to read it over the summer.
if you have sat through 2 years of QM lectures getting angrier and angrier, thinking "what is this pile of sh*t? i do not CARE if every experiment ever done confirms the predictions of this load of crap. crap is crap," then this book is for you. otherwise, move along, there's nothing for you to see here.
i mean, if you honestly think that the copenhagen interpretation is acceptable, then i call you a defeatist. and if you think the many-worlds theory has more value than an idle daydream, you need a good dope-slap. an infinity of parallel universes branching off 10^33 times per second? what is that tripe?
now, griffiths did not fix everything, mind you. he adds another postulate (of course, he never admits it), the "single-framework rule", which says that you can only ascribe multiple properties to a quantum system simultaneously if they can all be represented using a single consistent family of histories. thus the cost is quite high, but the benefits are tremendous - the greatest being that there is no longer such thing as "wavefunction collapse caused by measurement," and thus no more spooky superluminal effects are needed to explain EPR or similar 'paradoxes'. improving infinitely on bohr, who simply draws a line between the classical and the quantum and says "thou shalt not ask such questions", griffiths lays out an explicit mathematical test and says, "a statement (e.g. 'the electron has Sx = +1/2 AND Sz = +1/2') which fails the test is meaningless - not false, MEANINGLESS."
that said, there are still elephants in the room. whence the Single Framework Rule, r.g.? why? simply because if we obey it, then everything suddenly makes sense? that is not sufficient. WHY is quantum reasoning different from classical reasoning? fine, fine, ok, ok, most physicists stand guilty as charged, "smuggling classical reasoning into the quantum domain where it does not belong, giving rise to inconsistencies and confusion." but i have a queasy feeling that at least a bit of question-begging is going on here. "the theory is justified because it maintains consistency" does not quite cut it.
but i am hooked. next up is omnes - Understanding Quantum Mechanics
if you have sat through 2 years of QM lectures getting angrier and angrier, thinking "what is this pile of sh*t? i do not CARE if every experiment ever done confirms the predictions of this load of crap. crap is crap," then this book is for you. otherwise, move along, there's nothing for you to see here.
i mean, if you honestly think that the copenhagen interpretation is acceptable, then i call you a defeatist. and if you think the many-worlds theory has more value than an idle daydream, you need a good dope-slap. an infinity of parallel universes branching off 10^33 times per second? what is that tripe?
now, griffiths did not fix everything, mind you. he adds another postulate (of course, he never admits it), the "single-framework rule", which says that you can only ascribe multiple properties to a quantum system simultaneously if they can all be represented using a single consistent family of histories. thus the cost is quite high, but the benefits are tremendous - the greatest being that there is no longer such thing as "wavefunction collapse caused by measurement," and thus no more spooky superluminal effects are needed to explain EPR or similar 'paradoxes'. improving infinitely on bohr, who simply draws a line between the classical and the quantum and says "thou shalt not ask such questions", griffiths lays out an explicit mathematical test and says, "a statement (e.g. 'the electron has Sx = +1/2 AND Sz = +1/2') which fails the test is meaningless - not false, MEANINGLESS."
that said, there are still elephants in the room. whence the Single Framework Rule, r.g.? why? simply because if we obey it, then everything suddenly makes sense? that is not sufficient. WHY is quantum reasoning different from classical reasoning? fine, fine, ok, ok, most physicists stand guilty as charged, "smuggling classical reasoning into the quantum domain where it does not belong, giving rise to inconsistencies and confusion." but i have a queasy feeling that at least a bit of question-begging is going on here. "the theory is justified because it maintains consistency" does not quite cut it.
but i am hooked. next up is omnes - Understanding Quantum Mechanics
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