Books by Roland Omnes

Offers a guide to the conceptual framework of quantum mechanics. This book presents 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.

Offers a treatment of interpretation (in nonrelativistic physics). This book enables readers to check every step, apply techniques to problems, and make sure that no paradox or obscurity arises in the theory. It discusses various philosophical implications pertinent to the study of quantum mechanics. It is intended for physicists and students.

In this magisterial work, Roland Omnes takes us from the academies of ancient Greece to the laboratories of modern science as he seeks to do no less than rebuild the foundations of the philosophy of knowledge. One of the world's leading quantum physicists, Omnes reviews the history and recent development of mathematics, logic, and the physical sciences to show that current work in quantum theory offers new answers to questions that have puzzled philosophers for centuries: Is the world ultimately intelligible? Are all events caused? Do objects have definitive locations? Omnes addresses these profound questions with vigorous arguments and clear, colorful writing, aiming not just to advance scholarship but to enlighten readers with no background in science or philosophy. The book opens with an insightful and sweeping account of the main developments in science and the philosophy of knowledge from the pre-Socratic era to the nineteenth century. Omnes then traces the emergence in modern thought of a fracture between our intuitive, commonsense views of the world and the abstract and--for most people--incomprehensible world portrayed by advanced physics, math, and logic. He argues that the fracture appeared because the insights of Einstein and Bohr, the logical advances of Frege, Russell, and Godel, and the necessary mathematics of infinity of Cantor and Hilbert cannot be fully expressed by words or images only. Quantum mechanics played an important role in this development, as it seemed to undermine intuitive notions of intelligibility, locality, and causality. However, Omnes argues that common sense and quantum mechanics are not as incompatible as many have thought. In fact, he makes the provocative argument that the "e;consistent-histories"e; approach to quantum mechanics, developed over the past fifteen years, places common sense (slightly reappraised and circumscribed) on a firm scientific and philosophical footing for the first time. In doing so, it provides what philosophers have sought through the ages: a sure foundation for human knowledge. Quantum Philosophy is a profound work of contemporary science and philosophy and an eloquent history of the long struggle to understand the nature of the world and of knowledge itself.

Focuses on the philosophical relationship between mathematics and the natural sciences. This title shows that the axioms needed for the mathematics used in physics can also generate practically various fields of contemporary pure mathematics. It also provides a foundation for investigations in string theory and other areas of physics.