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Measured by the accuracy of its predictions and the scope of its technological applications, quantum mechanics is one of the most successful theories in science—as well as one of the most misunderstood. The deeper meaning of quantum mechanics remains controversial almost a century after its invention. Providing a way past quantum theory’s paradoxes and puzzles, QBism offers a strikingly new interpretation that opens up for the nonspecialist reader the profound implications of quantum mechanics for how we understand and interact with the world.
Short for Quantum Bayesianism, QBism adapts many of the conventional features of quantum mechanics in light of a revised understanding of probability. Bayesian probability, unlike the standard “frequentist probability,” is defined as a numerical measure of the degree of an observer’s belief that a future event will occur or that a particular proposition is true. Bayesianism’s advantages over frequentist probability are that it is applicable to singular events, its probability estimates can be updated based on acquisition of new information, and it can effortlessly include frequentist results. But perhaps most important, much of the weirdness associated with quantum theory—the idea that an atom can be in two places at once, or that signals can travel faster than the speed of light, or that Schrodinger’s cat can be simultaneously dead and alive—dissolves under the lens of QBism.
Using straightforward language without equations, Hans Christian von Baeyer clarifies the meaning of quantum mechanics in a commonsense way that suggests a new approach to physics in general.
Introduction
I. Quantum Mechanics
1. How the Quantum Was Born
2. Particles of Light
3. Wave/Particle Duality
4. The Wavefunction
5. “The Most Beautiful Experiment in Physics”
6. Then a Miracle Occurs
7. Quantum Uncertainty
8. The Simplest Wavefunction
II. Probability
9. Troubles with Probability
10. Probability according to the Reverend Bayes
III. Quantum Bayesianism
11. QBism Made Explicit
12. QBism Saves Schrodinger’s Cat
13. The Roots of QBism
14. Quantum Weirdness in the Laboratory
15. All Physics Is Local
16. Belief and Certainty
IV. The QBist Worldview
17. Physics and Human Experience
18. Nature’s Laws
19. The Rock Kicks Back
20. The Problem of the Now
21. A Perfect Map?
22. The Road Ahead
Appendix: Four Older Interpretations of Quantum Mechanics
Notes
Acknowledgments
Index
Description
Measured by the accuracy of its predictions and the scope of its technological applications, quantum mechanics is one of the most successful theories in science—as well as one of the most misunderstood. The deeper meaning of quantum mechanics remains controversial almost a century after its invention. Providing a way past quantum theory’s paradoxes and puzzles, QBism offers a strikingly new interpretation that opens up for the nonspecialist reader the profound implications of quantum mechanics for how we understand and interact with the world.
Short for Quantum Bayesianism, QBism adapts many of the conventional features of quantum mechanics in light of a revised understanding of probability. Bayesian probability, unlike the standard “frequentist probability,” is defined as a numerical measure of the degree of an observer’s belief that a future event will occur or that a particular proposition is true. Bayesianism’s advantages over frequentist probability are that it is applicable to singular events, its probability estimates can be updated based on acquisition of new information, and it can effortlessly include frequentist results. But perhaps most important, much of the weirdness associated with quantum theory—the idea that an atom can be in two places at once, or that signals can travel faster than the speed of light, or that Schrodinger’s cat can be simultaneously dead and alive—dissolves under the lens of QBism.
Using straightforward language without equations, Hans Christian von Baeyer clarifies the meaning of quantum mechanics in a commonsense way that suggests a new approach to physics in general.
