Time and Chance

Book Description

This book is an attempt to get to the bottom of an acute and perennial tension between our best scientific pictures of the fundamental physical structure of the world and our everyday empirical experience of it. The trouble is about the direction of time. The situation (very briefly) is that it is a consequence of almost every one of those fundamental scientific pictures--and that it is at the same time radically at odds with our common sense--that whatever can happen can just as naturally happen backwards.

Albert provides an unprecedentedly clear, lively, and systematic new account--in the context of a Newtonian-Mechanical picture of the world--of the ultimate origins of the statistical regularities we see around us, of the temporal irreversibility of the Second Law of Thermodynamics, of the asymmetries in our epistemic access to the past and the future, and of our conviction that by acting now we can affect the future but not the past. Then, in the final section of the book, he generalizes the Newtonian picture to the quantum-mechanical case and (most interestingly) suggests a very deep potential connection between the problem of the direction of time and the quantum-mechanical measurement problem.

The book aims to be both an original contribution to the present scientific and philosophical understanding of these matters at the most advanced level, and something in the nature of an elementary textbook on the subject accessible to interested high-school students.

Customer Reviews:

This book is one of the best on the subject........2007-05-09

I couldn't stand to see this book with such poor user reviews. One can see the academic reviews are stellar. This is the best book on time that I have ever read. It is not pop-science, it is an academic work on the foundations of physics and time. As such, it is not an easy book to read, despite the fact that it is well-written and anyone should be able to follow it if their mind has not atrophied. It is not easy because it presents in almost full glory all the problems most physicists ignore with respect to questions concerning the role of time in modern physics. I gave this book four stars because I thought it was missing (2) things. One - epistemic motivation for the past hypothesis, Two - Convincing arguments that QCD time-reversal symmetry breaking doesn't really matter for the questions discussed. Anyone who thinks this is a poorly written book should survey the other literature on the topic for comparison. Dr. Albert has tackled a difficult subject with a degree of intellectual integrity and honesty uncommon in physics so don't complain if you have to think because that is the purpose of the book. I have read this book repeatedly and learn something new almost everytime I open the book. I thouroughly disagree with his attempted resolution of time-reversal invariance and entropy increase through the past hypothesis, in particular since the epistemic motivation for the past hypothesis admits necessarily of no non-circular verification. I still maintain he has done an excellent job in writing this book and the poor user reviews should not prevent anyone from reading it. Expect to read it slowly at least twice and to have to think and you will know more about time than most physics PhD's.

Don't take a chance with your time on this book.......2005-03-26

The title is aptly chosen. Time and chance. You'll loose out of both on this book. Try the book The Direction of Time. It is a much better written book. It is amazing that Alberts actually earned his degree in anything. The man simply cannot write worth a damn, try as hard as he does to convey what often are simple concepts.

Not THAT bad..........2004-03-10

I, and anyone who has read Albert's previous QM book, can readily agree with the other reviewers that his style is as queer as a four dollar bill, as off-putting as it is annoying. And yet, as I kept returning to Albert--this book in particular--all the while my outside reading on the subjects giving me a firmer rudimentary comprehension of the problems, I came to find that, slowly but surely, his work grew on me.
But as that's only my experience, I'll make sure prospective readers all understand just exactly what it is they're going to get themselves into with Albert:
1) Again, the style. He repeats phrases and words (e.g. "patently") often many times in the same sentence, which latter often read like Kant: a front clause and end clause that relate pretty obviously, but a whole middle ground that is prolix and confusing in providing the rationale for the relation. As I said, for me, the style grew on me, much as Kant's did, but it is challenging and perhaps needlessly difficult.
2) This is "patently" NOT a book for beginner's. On the other hand, it is patently not a book solely for experts either. I am no expert--not even close---and I would say I'm about one tier above begginer level, basically familiar with the relevant issues and concepts, but with no math and no formal training. The drawback of this is, of course, that issues presented much more clearly and gracefully elsewhere show up here as being complicated beyond belief. The "punchline" is (as Albert often says), that this IS complicated material, that it really isn't as simple as it's often presented, and Albert aims to give you the whole-hog, not an ice cream sundae version of it. With persistence and patience, you will get it, I swear. And just to re-iterate, you DO NOT need the math to get it, at least for this book. Most of the math is relegated to footnotes and for those who care about seeing demonstrations and proofs, which even without full understanding can be grasped from Albert's presentations of them.
3) He is repetitive, but I find this a good thing. Kant too was repetitive, but that actually helps me stay inside the frame and not get lost in the swift progress of the tour of these issues Albert is taking us through. You might hate it, so beware.
4) On the issues, Albert is fantastic, in my opinion. But when it comes to his own suggestions, and the last few chapters on QM, things get too obscure and presuppose too much on the reader's behalf (like having read his previous book). He tries, but he fails here. The good thing is, these last chapters are just icing. You'll get everything up to there, seriously, with patience and effort (although you may lose all patience, I don't deny).

I just say give it a shot. It's at least worth that much, and if you do "get it," you will be all the wiser. Good luck!

Fascinating Subject But Horribly Unintelligible Writing.......2002-06-04

Formally trained in academia as a physicist, David Albert made the switch over to philosophy to address foundational issues in physics, most notably those dealing with time and an outstanding problem in quantum mechanics known as the measurement problem. Although the endeavors of Albert are noble and worthwhile, I am afraid that he is lacking in competency as a writer to communicate his ideas in any sensible, intelligible fashion. As a former student of his, I can personally attest to how frustrating his writing and teaching style, kindly referred to by some as "unique," can be. Needlessly obtuse, ever obscure, Albert writes in such a manner that his prose can truly serve as a wonderful negative example of how not to write. Virtually every conceivable error in basic grammar and syntax is committed. Endlessly long sentences, riddled with comma splices and run on sentences, are grossly accompanied by a monstrous convolution of nestled subordinate clauses, which topple over one another and collapse any unifying logic.

Adding to this confusion, Albert repeatedly makes distracting use of parentheses in numerous attempts to develop main ideas instead of correctly using parentheses to make brief, nonessential comments. This semantic nightmare, however, does not end here, as Albert, in page after page, then incorporates numerous, ridiculously long footnotes, which like his "parenthetical" comments are also used to develop main ideas and are so needlessly complicated as to loose any cohesive significance. The net effect of all of this is to drown whatever semblance of order or meaning Albert is attempting to convey under a cacophony of jangled ideas, which chaotically crash into one another instead of logically and succinctly flowing orderly and soundly from one notion to the other. The reader senses there is some overarching unifying thread, in which all the disparate ideas Albert greatly belabors in developing will come together. This intimation, then, pushes the reader on with a very taxed patience for that moment of a great enlightenment. The anticipation of that arrival, however, proves anticlimactic, as chapter after chapter ends as it begins: in a dissolution of fragmentary, Byzantine ideas and lost meanings. Indeed, there has not been such a level of impenetrable perplexity in literature since T. S. Eliot's The Waste Land.

The most intelligible portion of this book, ironically, is to be found-not in the book itself per se-but in the description of the book on the inside of the jacket cover. Essentially, this book serves to bring an awareness to what is a fascinating problem in physics: the attempt to reconcile the temporal invariance of physical laws with our perennial everyday sense of a unidirectional nature of time. In Newtonian dynamics, for example, the governing equations of motion equally apply to both the past and the future. There is nothing in Newton's equations (or indeed in other equations that describe other physical phenomena such as electromagnetism or quantum mechanics) that specifies a direction of time. The past, in otherworlds, is just as likely to be a so-called "arrow of time" as the future is. Yet we know that there is one direction to time. In particular, the Second Law of Thermodynamics shows that we live in a universe in which entropy is ever increasing. We age and never grow younger; dropped eggs, which then crack, never spontaneous reassemble; smoke fills a room and never flows toward a point; we recall the past and not the future; and we can affect the future but not the past. Despite these common, everyday understandings of the way the universe operates, physical law makes no such distinctions of the past and future. We are as likely to become younger as we are to age; broken eggs can suddenly reassemble; smoke can converge toward a point; we should be able to recall the future as well as the past; and we can affect the past as well as the future. This is the subject that Albert is attempting to present to his readers.

Moreover, Albert offers a solution to the above problem: the so-called Past-Hypothesis, which is at the heart of this book. The Past-Hypothesis posits that the universe began in a Big Bang, low-entropy state, in which the random nature of particle motion (later argued by Albert to be possibly quantum mechanical in origin) then guarantees that the universe will evolve toward ever growing entropy, thus specifying an "arrow" of time and accounting for the Second Law of Thermodynamics. Albert argues that the Past-Hypothesis is a basic facet of physical law, irreducible to nothing else or anything more basic. This view, however, is by no means universally accepted. There are many competing theories to this problem of time, including a very interesting one by Julian Barbour, who argues in The End of Time for a fascinating possibility that there is an underlying time-less structure to the universe.

Other than stating the problem well on the book jacket (which you can view and read here on Amazon.com), I am afraid that Time and Chance really has no other merit, which would make it a book worth purchasing. I truly hope that if Dr. Albert is reading this he will understand just how difficult it is to comprehend his book, in which the difficulty lies not in the subject matter but in his writing. There were many very bright and capable people in his class who often times simply had no idea (myself included) what it was he was trying to convey. The book is in dire need of heavy revision, and I hope that this is undertaken in the future. As it stands, the book is simply too poorly written to be worth the read other than if you are one of the unfortunate students enrolled in his Direction of Time course, in which case your grade depends on you desperately trying to elucidate and understand this book.

Definitely not for the layperson.......2001-10-12

I was interested in this book because of its glowing review in Science magazine. While this may be an excellent book, I certainly couldn't tell after the first 45 pages. Major portions of the text consists of illegible footnotes. In spite of its folksy style, the author is obscure and impenetrable. It makes me wonder why, if he really has something to say, he can't explain it in a sensible fashion. While there might be people who get something from this book, a casual reader should expect some very tough going.

Physics and Chance: Philosophical Issues in the Foundations of Statistical Mechanics

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Should be read by every student taking stat phys

Physics and Chance: Philosophical Issues in the Foundations of Statistical Mechanics
Lawrence Sklar
Manufacturer: Cambridge University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0521440556

Book Description

Statistical mechanics is one of the crucial fundamental theories of physics, and in his new book Lawrence Sklar, one of the pre-eminent philosophers of physics, offers a comprehensive, non-technical introduction to that theory and to attempts to understand its foundational elements. Among the topics treated in detail are: probability and statistical explanation, the basic issues in both equilibrium and non-equilibrium statistical mechanics, the role of cosmology, the reduction of thermodynamics to statistical mechanics, and the alleged foundation of the very notion of time asymmetry in the entropic asymmetry of systems in time. The book emphasises the interaction of scientific and philosophical modes of reasoning, and in this way will interest all philosophers of science as well as those in physics and chemistry concerned with philosophical questions. The book could also be read by an informed general reader interested in the foundations of modern science.

Customer Reviews:

Should be read by every student taking stat phys.......2006-09-08

(NB. This book really deserves 4.5 stars.)

Much of my work concerns applying statistical physics in novel contexts. With that in mind, a few years ago I undertook to take a look at foundational issues. Although this book contains few equations, it is sophisticated and clear, and also a page-turner. My copy is jammed with Post-Its serving as placemarkers.

That said, a few more equations and better references/attribution would have been nice. For instance, Sklar mentions a "pantamicrocanonical" ensemble at one point, but he neither elaborates nor gives a usable reference. I have been unable to track down the origin or precise meaning of this term, to my annoyance.

There are biases in coverage as well: most philosophers of statistical physics are (perhaps rightly) preoccupied with the arrow of time. Personally, however, I found the distinction between ergodicity and mixing far more relevant, insightful, and useful. The coverage of information theory and MAXENT is weak. Many people familiar with MAXENT often come to notice some of its limitations, and a more thorough philosophical treatment (incorporating views from e.g., Jaynes to Grad) of the subject would have been welcome.

But all in all, this is an excellent book, and a worthy read. I recommend it especially highly to the student of statistical physics: buy Sklar, and check out Krylov from the library.

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Chance & Choice: Memorabilia
Kai Lai Chung
Manufacturer: World Scientific Publishing Company
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Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 9812560122

Book Description

This book begins with a historical essay entitled "Will the Sun Rise Again?" and ends with a general address entitled "Mathematics and Applications". The articles cover an interesting range of topics: combinatoric probabilities, classical limit theorems, Markov chains and processes, potential theory, Brownian motion, Schrödinger-Feynman problems, etc. They include many addresses presented at international conferences and special seminars, as well as memorials to and reminiscences of prominent contemporary mathematicians and reviews of their works. Rare old photos of many of them enliven the book.

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Ruelle's Chance and Chaos
Good introduction to chaos theory
Outdated/inaccurate and self-indulgent; little of value
A vivid, lively presentation on Chaos Theory
An Introduction to Chaos

Chance and Chaos
David Ruelle
Manufacturer: Princeton University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0691021007

Book Description

How do scientists look at chance, or randomness, and chaos in physical systems? In answering this question for a general audience, Ruelle writes in the best French tradition: he has produced an authoritative and elegant book--a model of clarity, succinctness, and a humor bordering at times on the sardonic.

Customer Reviews:

Ruelle's Chance and Chaos.......2000-04-01

This is the best popular book on chaos, dynamic systems, and entropy that I have ever read, by one of the pioneers of this field. I have remarked in my reviews of Gribbin, Kaku, and others that Creative Geniuses in science (unlike Ingenious Followers who are so abundant) inspire others and themselves often by popularizing science in ordinary English. It is a good sign if they do this often, but sometimes they only do it seldom or never. Ruelle, as far as I know, only did it once, in this book, and the reader who loses the opportunity to obtain this book has lost a classic. Ruelle inspired me at an important place in my career (my fields are related to the probability-logic-entropy-physics interface). I am especially fond of recalling his description of how extremely new creations or inventions are typically received in science: journal reviewers will usually contradict each other in their haste to oust the newcomer. There are still journals which do not touch chaos, entropy, dynamic systems, fractals, not to mention my own field of logic-based probability.

Good introduction to chaos theory.......1999-11-05

It's nice to be hearing how a physicist places chaos theory in its place amongst possible explanations for natural phenomena. He doesn't oversell chaos, and doesn't undersell it. Not too big a tome -- a good read.

Outdated/inaccurate and self-indulgent; little of value.......1999-11-02

Who knows why Ruelle felt compelled to write this book? He makes a lot of sweeping statements about fields he doesn't have a mastery over. Only tangentially does he bring in chaos, and he doesn't bother staying on any point long enough to add any insight on any of the issues presented. It's such a weak book that it doesn't even have "brainstorming value" -- the collection of ideas is limited in breadth and depth. Perhaps in 1991 it was fashionable to come up with books like this; having read it in 1999, I found little of value.

A vivid, lively presentation on Chaos Theory.......1999-09-13

I used this audiotape as a supplement to a doctoral seminar in applied mathematics which I taught to business students. Most of them already had some background in Chaos and Complexity Theory and the level of the tape is really just a notch above the layman's understanding. However, it is very entertaining as well as informative for the more sophisticated audience. Basically we played a side of each of the two tapes in each class session. It was very much like having a Nobel Laureate as a guest lecturer (except that there is no Nobel in mathematics because Nobel's wife apparently had an affair with a mathematician!). Thoroughly enjoyable.

An Introduction to Chaos.......1998-03-20

The book is deception by the author! He says he is letting you in on chaos, but doesn't. He tries but is not talking in the language that he actually thinks should be used to talk about these systems. He is only decieving himself and not the reader! I wish he had written this as if he were trying to explain it to his children and not as a way to make money. Your unique Associates ID is: thefractaltransl.

The Grand Contraption: The World as Myth, Number, and Chance

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A well-written guide to human exploration and cosmology
Enjoyable History of Humankind's Grappling With The Big Questions
David Park Hits a Cosmic and Historical Homerun
A Partial History of Science from a Classical Point of View

The Grand Contraption: The World as Myth, Number, and Chance
David Park
Manufacturer: Princeton University Press
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Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0691121338

Book Description

The Grand Contraption tells the story of humanity's attempts through 4,000 years of written history to make sense of the world in its cosmic totality, to understand its physical nature, and to know its real and imagined inhabitants. No other book has provided as coherent, compelling, and learned a narrative on this subject of subjects. David Park takes us on an incredible journey that illuminates the multitude of elaborate "contraptions" by which humans in the Western world have imagined the earth they inhabit--and what lies beyond. Intertwining history, religion, philosophy, literature, and the physical sciences, this eminently readable book is, ultimately, about the "grand contraption" we've constructed through the ages in an effort to understand and identify with the universe.

According to Park, people long ago conceived of our world as a great rock slab inhabited by gods, devils, and people and crowned by stars. Thinkers imagined ether to fill the empty space, and in the comforting certainty of celestial movement they discerned numbers, and in numbers, order. Separate sections of the book tell the fascinating stories of measuring and mapping the Earth and Heavens, and later, the scientific exploration of the universe.

The journey reveals many common threads stretching from ancient Mesopotamians and Greeks to peoples of today. For example, humans have tended to imagine Earth and Sky as living creatures. Not true, say science-savvy moderns. But truth isn't always the point. The point, says Park, is that Earth is indeed the fragile bubble we surmise, and we must treat it with the reverence it deserves.

Customer Reviews:

A well-written guide to human exploration and cosmology.......2006-11-04

David Park, a professor of physics, writes with expertise about humankind's quest to answer the big questions of life: How did we get here? Is there anyone else out there? Science can only take us so far before crossing the unseen boundary into metaphysics and speculation, but it's an interesting trip nonetheless.

Enjoyable History of Humankind's Grappling With The Big Questions.......2005-10-27

This is a very readable, accessible work of scientific history. Rather than focus on any one scientific leap, Park weaves together a history of the main attempts to answer the "Big Questions" -- How did we get here? What exactly is "here"? What else is out there? Such ambition is dangerous, and Park could be criticized for too much and too little detail, or cultural bias in focusing on Western intellectual tradition. But Park anticipates these criticisms from the outset, through his own description of the scope of his project, both grand and limited at the same time. The book reads like a series of lectures from one of your favorite professors, both learned and benevolent, never condescending but also never incomprehensible. I come to this with a background in history, not science, and found the book enjoyable and well worth reading. Given the current debate in America over Intelligent Design, this book is also quite topical, and would make a good primer for someone on either side of the debate, precisely because Park avoids taking sides and just presents the history in a neutral, but engaging, manner.

David Park Hits a Cosmic and Historical Homerun.......2005-08-19

The Grand Contraption is easy to read. Professor Park never spends too much time on any of the subparts of his story of how we humnan beings have conceived of the universe's structure, beginning, and future. The concepts of time and space are addressed throughout. The best part is that he doesn't come to any grand conclusion himself. Except to suggest our grand speculations, founded on scientific evidence, will continue for, well, forever. Add some intuition and even a belief in some type of creative intelligence in the cosmos, and that drive to figure it all out will continue (and may never end until the universe itself does). (If it does.) David Park is quite a wit, too! And is obviously a Renaissance Man!!!

A Partial History of Science from a Classical Point of View.......2005-08-13

Histories of how mankind views the world should be rather non controversial, but in this day of extremism those who favor Science and Naturalism are locked in a bitter fight with religious fundamentalists, over Darwinism and much else. As one who leans toward the scientific story I wondered why I was reading this book that was very much interested in how the ancients saw the world and why they came to the conclusions that they did. The book took me back to my undergraduate years when I had a much more liberal attitude toward life - and I enjoyed it for that. The facts are accurate, and the style is that of a very well educated author. It is a pleasent read whatever your philosophy of life.

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Chance or Reality and Other Essays
Stanley L. Jaki
Manufacturer: Rowman & Littlefield (Non NBN)
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Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0819156574

On Aristotle's Physics 2 (Ancient Commentators on Aristotle)

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On Aristotle's Physics 2 (Ancient Commentators on Aristotle)
Simplicius
Manufacturer: Cornell University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0801432839

The Broken Dice, and Other Mathematical Tales of Chance

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Even better than his first book
intellectual fun

The Broken Dice, and Other Mathematical Tales of Chance
Ivar Ekeland
Manufacturer: University Of Chicago Press
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ASIN: 0226199924

Book Description

Ivar Ekeland extends his consideration of the catastrophe theory of the universe begun in his widely acclaimed Mathematics and the Unexpected, by drawing on rich literary sources, particularly the Norse saga of Saint Olaf, and such current topics as chaos theory, information theory, and particle physics.

"Ivar Ekeland gained a large and enthusiastic following with Mathematics and the Unexpected, a brilliant and charming exposition of fundamental new discoveries in the theory of dynamical systems. The Broken Dice continues the same theme, and in the same elegant, seemingly effortless style, but focuses more closely on the implications of those discoveries for the rest of human culture. What are chance and probability? How has our thinking about them been changed by the discovery of chaos? What are all of these concepts good for? . . . Ah, but, I mustn't give the game away, any more than I should if I were reviewing a detective novel. And this is just as gripping a tale. . . . Beg, borrow, or preferably buy a copy. . . . I guarantee you won't be disappointed."—Ian Stewart, Science

Customer Reviews:

Even better than his first book.......2003-03-03

Ivar Ekeland is one of the better writers of popular mathematics. In "The Broken Dice," he continues with the themes explored in "Mathematics and the Unexpected." Divided into six chapters (Chance, Fate, Anticipation, Chaos, Risk and Statistics) the book is an elegant examination of the human struggle to find order in the seeming contingency that is the natural world. Mixed with the mathematical discussions are excerpts from Icelandic sagas, the Bible, and Shakespeare that reinforce the message that our analytical search for meaning is still fundamentally a humanistic endeavor.

intellectual fun.......2002-08-21

If you had to go through it in graduate school you'd probably agree with me that behaviour under uncertainty is usually handled rather mechanically by professors. You may even have considered that, anyway, not much intuition could be behind those theories. Ivar Ekeland shows in this book that dealing with the fundamentals of expectations, probabilities, games, and risk can be fun, and you get the intuition to start thinking by yourself as well. Early morning reading, though.

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Required Reading for Physics Students!
A good introduction to a deep thinker.
Defense of Hidden Variables
David Bohm and philosophy of physics

Causality and Chance in Modern Physics
David Bohm
Manufacturer: University of Pennsylvania Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0812210026

Customer Reviews:

Required Reading for Physics Students!.......2002-04-20

I consider this book a gem.

The forthright explanations of mechanistic systems, both deterministic and indeterministic, will help to awaken any student of physics as to the degree to which their world-view may not be as broad as they had imagined.

The concerns raised about quantum mechanics are not trivial or extreme. And they are raised with deliberation and humility. Likewise, so are Bohm's suggested solutions.

Finally, and most importantly I think, the argument for a world-view of physics that presumes - as the most scientifically (investigationally speaking) useful view to take - that the universe is comprised of an infinite number of levels of depth and complexity. Perhaps there are not an infinite number of levels of reality, but to presuppose there is opens the mind to want to investigate what they might be. Thus, supposing that QM defines and "explains" the 'bottom' of reality is first, not a logically strong position (just as Brownian motion formulas do not "explain" such motion as a fundamental aspect of nature) and secondly, such a view is scientifically inhibiting: supposing that QM *is* the bottom level of reality is rather silly in light of our historical knowledge of how humans have consistently misjudged the 'fundamental' aspects of nature in the past, and supposing we have reached it now via QM is a dubious claim. Further, even the issue of determinism vs. indeterminism may be a moot point: it may be at a lower level of reality, there is no such distinction - we may be seeing those two 'macroscopic' aspects of a more basic or inclusive feature of reality.

If you want to be an original thinker in physics (or perhaps any science or philosophy), this book is a good starting point to help you realize how easily assumptions of the nature of reality slip past our awareness.

A good introduction to a deep thinker........2002-01-16

In this, David Bohm's first book looking at the conceptual foundations of modern physics he writes in a fast paced energetic way which, although quite analytical and interesting, lacks the warmth to be found in his later books.

His aim is to investigate the concepts of cause and chance and their applicability in physics. Bohm considers the ideas of causality in terms of relationshipos between "things" both as one-to-many and many-to-one types, then considers how contingency, chance and probablity are present in natural law.

Then, starting from the ideas of classical mechanistic physics and the changes which occurred over several hundred years in the way that the philosophy of mechanism both, took hold, 17th and 18th centuries, and significantly changed, 19th century he considers the longevity of this philosophy even after changes in it which would normally entertain a new outlook: classical particle mechanics->wave theory->fields. All of these new developments altered how the philosophy of mechanism was thought of but still maintained fundamental aspects such as: a quantitative law which could explain all natural phenomena. he goes on to explain the links between macroscopic and microscopic levels of law and how in each level a relatively independent state of affairs exists which regard to the laws, valid in each case.

Further, with the development of quantum theory at the start of the 20th century, ideas of probablity, indeterminacy and discreteness became the new concepts in physics, once again significantly changing the outlook yet still maintaining the most important tenet of mechanism: a be all and end all explanation of reality ie a final explanation which knows no alteration.

Bohm then goes on to demonstrate at least qualitatively what a different, alternative interpretation of quantum mechanics could look like, introducing his concepts of the sub-quantum level and the qualitative infinity of nature which is yet a unity. In the final chapter he looks at the way in which humans attempt to comprehend this qualitative infinity in terms of the abstraction of certain aspects from the whole and its consequences such as the multiplicity of these abstractions and their significance. He thereby avoids the seemingly obvious conclusion of Neumann regarding the non-existence of underlying laws or hidden variables. He considers question on the modes of being, becoming and how a "thing" can exist for long periods of time unchanged and yet in certain contexts always changing. He belittle's the Laplacian mechanistic "God" and what objective reality really means.

It is Bohm's first attempt at these difficult issues (1957) long before chaos theory and its ability to lead to randomness even from strictly deterministic laws and the further developments he himself underwent in talks with Krishnamurti and the consequent construction of the idea of the holomovement. This book does not go as deep or is as fascinating as his later, richer ideas. But it does give an overview of what Bohm wished to change in physics and also society through his ideas such as dialogue.

A good introduction to a deep thinker.

Defense of Hidden Variables.......2001-08-04

Bohm in this book attacks to Standard Interpretation of Quantum Physics. He starts with definition of Physical Theories, Laws of Nature, discusses Statistical Mechanics and goes into Deterministic Mechanicstic Philosophys and indeterminist Mechanistic Philosophy. He attackes Bohr and Heisenberg on their stand that Uncertainity Principal is the rule of the nature and foundation of Quantum Physics.Claims it is not conclusively proven as a rule and than argues that one can always find new Theory that can be fundemantally different from Uncertainity Principle, yet could explain nature better and yields current Quantum Physics as complimentarity. Although he claims that Heisenberg's claim is with no foundation, I believe he fails to prove that Nature can not be explained completely with limited number of laws and concepts.His argument against Heisenberg could be reversed and used against his own argument

David Bohm and philosophy of physics.......2000-08-18

This book is a bold and original investigation of the philosophical foundations of physical science. David Bohm, as a superb physicist with a major textbook on quantum mechanics, is qualified for what he undertakes to do in this book. The book is devoted partly to a detailed exposition of "mechanical philosophy". Bohm describes in detail the sources and implications of this philosophy as it appears in classical mechanics, statistical physics, and quantum mechanics. Bohm argues that mechanical philosophy is not a necessary consequence of the formalism or of the well-known success of these theories. It is one possible, albeit widespread, interpretation. According to Bohm, the mechanical philosophy is a result of assuming the validity of a scientific theory in all possible situations and contexts. Bohm shows how other more reasonable interpretations of specific theories can be developed. Bohm's own interpretation involves various levels, described by qualitatively distinct theories. These may be related but are not necessarily reducable to a basic level. In particular, Bohm discusses quantum mechanics from this point of view. This serves as an introduction to what Bohm elsewhere turned into a technical research programme. The book is pervaded by a sense of Bohm's deep and unified vision of the physical world.

The Physics of Chance: From Blaise Pascal to Niels Bohr

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Chances are, you'll like this book
A wonderful overview of statistical physics

The Physics of Chance: From Blaise Pascal to Niels Bohr
Charles Ruhla
Manufacturer: Oxford University Press, USA
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0198539770

Book Description

This is an introduction to the ideas of randomness that are central to much of modern physics and have overthrown the "clock-work universe" conceptions of earlier centuries. The author shows how the laws of probability and statistics were developed by such mathematicians as Fermat, Pascal, and Gauss, and how they received their first major application in physics in the kinetic theory of gases developed by Maxwell and Boltzmann. Here the use of statistics is necessary because the number of particles involved is too great for a deterministic calculation. But soon the mathematician and physicist Poincare demonstrated the unpredictability if certain systems containing only a small number of bodies, because of extreme sensitivity to initial conditions. He thus became a founder of chaos theory. Finally, with the advent of quantum theory, physics seemed to be based on an essential randomness, whose reality was debated by Bohr and Einstein till the end of their lives. Only recently, in the experiments of Alain Aspect, has a convincing demonstration been given the inescapable randomness of quantum theory is a fact of nature. Professor Ruhla guides the reader skilfully through all these developments and provides mathematical details in appendices. The book provides an accessible introduction to the modern physicist's conception of the world of cause and chance.

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Chances are, you'll like this book.......2003-05-01

If you ever read one book on quantum theory, then this is the book you should read. Especially if you want to understand Bell's Inequality and how the experiments done by Alain Aspect in the 1980's verified that the inequality is violated.

I first heard of Bell's inequality and the EPR Paradox while reading an article by David Mermin in "Science News" and did not understand it at all. Then I read Robert Adair's account of it in "The Great Design" (a good book to have) and I began to gain a rudimentary appreciation of what was going on. But it wasn't until I read Ruhla's "Physics of Chance" that I learned how to derive the predictions of quantum theory - the predictions which show that two distant objects can exert influence on one another, "faster than the speed of light."

But Bell's Inequality is not the only subject in here. The text begins with rather simple treatments of probability, applied to coin tosses and telephone queues, on to Boltzmann Statistics, and then finally to quantum theory. So as your reading through the chapters in the book, you pick up the "tools" you need as you go along, in order to understand the more difficult material later on.

Ruhla's writing style is engaging, although silly at times. ...

A wonderful overview of statistical physics.......2003-03-13

This book is extraordinarily well written and illustrated. It introduces the major themes of statistical physics at a level that shold be readily accessible to senior undergraduates or scientists and engineers who are non-specialists. Highly recommended; a gem!

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