Atoms, metaphors, and paradoxes : Niels Bohr and the construction of a new physics

This book gives a detailed study of the development and the interpretation given to Niels Bohr's Principle of Correspondence. It also describes the role that this principle played in guiding Bohr's research over the critical period from 1920 to 1927. Quantum mechanics, developed in the 1920s and 1930s by Bohr, Heisenberg, Born, Schrödinger and Dirac, represents one of the most profound turning points in science. This theory required a wholly new kind of physics in which many of the principles, concepts and models representing reality, that had formed the basis of classical physics since Galileo and Newton, had to be abandoned. This book re-examines the birth of quantum mechanics, in particular examining the development of crucial and original insights of Niels Bohr. This book gives a detailed study of the development of, and the interpretation given to, Niels Bohr's Principle of Correspondence. It also describes the role that this played in guiding Bohr's research over the critical period from 1920 to 1927, and in the justification of his principal philosophical conclusions. Quantum mechanics developed in the 1920s and 1930s by Bohr, Heisenberg, Born, Schrodinger and Dirac, represents one of the most profound turning points in science this century. With the elaboration of quantum mechanics went a slow process of conceptual refoundation of science, which obliged scientists and philosophers radically to rethink many physical and methodological concepts and criteria of explanation that had changed little since the time of Newton. The attempts to explain the cognitive meaning and physical significance of the new theory gave rise to a debate which saw Bohr, Einstein, Heisenberg and Pauli confronting (and disagreeing over) the philosophical problems and consequences of the new physics. By reconstructing various crucial points and arguments in Bohr's work. This book shows how certain theoretical problems obliged contemporary physicists to deal with the conflict with classical theories of knowledge and so to begin a reconstruction of the epistemological foundation of science. The central objective of the book is the reconstruction of the historical genesis of the concept of complementarity, a technical concept at the basis of quantum mechanics, which, from an epistemological analysis of measurement phenomena and certain formal aspects of the theory, enables certain apparently paradoxical kinds of physical conceptions (for example wave-particle duality to be used coherently in the modelling of physical phenomena. This book will be of interest to historians and philosophers of science, as well as to physicists with and interest in the development of quantum mechanics generally and of Niels Bohr's ideas in particular. Cover......Page 1 Intro Blurb i......Page 2 Title v......Page 6 Copyright vi......Page 7 Contents vii......Page 8 Introduction 1......Page 10 Acknowledgements 7......Page 16 Notes 8......Page 17 1 The paradigm of complementarity 10......Page 19 Notes......Page 40 2 Atomic model and quantum hypotheses 36......Page 45 Notes......Page 79 3 The principle of correspondence 78......Page 87 Notes......Page 114 4 The theory of virtual oscillators 111......Page 120 Notes......Page 136 5 The conceptual foundation of quantum mechanics 134......Page 143 Notes......Page 183 6 The Bohr-Einstein confrontation: phenomena and physical reality 183......Page 192 Notes......Page 221 General bibliography 218......Page 227 Name index 235......Page 244 General index 238......Page 247 Cover 1 Intro Blurb i 2 Title v 6 Copyright vi 7 Contents vii 8 Introduction 1 10 Acknowledgements 7 16 Notes 8 17 1 The paradigm of complementarity 10 19 Notes 40 2 Atomic model and quantum hypotheses 36 45 Notes 79 3 The principle of correspondence 78 87 Notes 114 4 The theory of virtual oscillators 111 120 Notes 136 5 The conceptual foundation of quantum mechanics 134 143 Notes 183 6 The Bohr-Einstein confrontation: phenomena and physical reality 183 192 Notes 221 General bibliography 218 227 Name index 235 244 General index 238 247 9780521402590 This book reexamines the birth of quantum mechanics, in particular examining the development of crucial and original insights of Bohr. In particular, it gives a detailed study of the development and the interpretation given to Bohr's Principle of Correspondence. It also describes the role that this principle played in guiding Bohr's research over the critical period from 1920 to 1927. 'The new wave mechanics gave rise to the hope that an account of atomic phenomena might be obtained which would not differ essentially from that afforded by the classical theories of electricity and magnetism. This book gives a detailed study of Niels Bohr's Principle of Correspondence. It examines the development of crucial and original insights of Bohr during the birth of quantum mechanics in the 1920s and 1930s. Sandro Petruccioli ; Translated By Ian Mcgilvray. Translation Of: Atomi, Metafore, Paradossi. Includes Bibliographical References And Index.