Burwell, Jennifer (Author)
How highly abstract quantum concepts were represented in language, and how these concepts were later taken up by philosophers, literary critics, and new-age gurus.The principles of quantum physics―and the strange phenomena they describe―are represented most precisely in highly abstract algebraic equations. Why, then, did these mathematically driven concepts compel founders of the field, particularly Erwin Schrödinger, Niels Bohr, and Werner Heisenberg, to spend so much time reflecting on ontological, epistemological, and linguistic concerns? What is it about quantum concepts that appeals to latter-day Eastern mystics, poststructuralist critics, and get-rich-quick schemers? How did their interpretations and misinterpretations of quantum phenomena reveal their own priorities? In this book, Jennifer Burwell examines these questions and considers what quantum phenomena―in the context of the founders' debates over how to describe them―reveal about the relationship between everyday experience, perception, and language.Drawing on linguistic, literary, and philosophical traditions, Burwell illuminates representational and linguistic problems posed by quantum concepts―the fact, for example, that quantum phenomena exist only as probabilities or tendencies toward being and cannot be said to exist in a particular time and place. She traces the emergence of quantum theory as an analytic tool in literary criticism, in particular the use of wave/particle duality in interpretations of gender differences in the novels of Virginia Woolf and critics' connection of Bohr's Principle of Complementarity to poetic form; she examines the "quantum mysticism" of Fritjof Capra and Gary Zukav; and she concludes by analyzing "nuclear discourse" in the context of quantum concepts, arguing that it, too, adopts a language of the unthinkable and the indescribable.
...MoreReview Olival Freire (2019) Review of "Quantum Language and the Migration of Scientific Concepts". Isis: International Review Devoted to the History of Science and Its Cultural Influences (pp. 215-215).
Article
Hilgevoord, Jan;
(2005)
Time in Quantum Mechanics: A Story of Confusion
(/isis/citation/CBB000501568/)
Article
Perovic, Slobodan;
(2006)
Schrödinger's Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics and the Relevance of Bohr's Experimental Critique
(/isis/citation/CBB000670174/)
Thesis
Diamond, Ethel;
(2006)
The Role of Philosophy in the Conceptual Development of Quantum Physics
(/isis/citation/CBB001560852/)
Book
Parkinson, Gavin;
(2008)
Surrealism, Art, and Modern Science Relativity, Quantum Mechanics, Epistemology
(/isis/citation/CBB001251160/)
Book
Plotnitsky, Arkady;
(2010)
Epistemology and Probability: Bohr, Heisenberg, Schrödinger and the Nature of Quantum-Theoretical Thinking
(/isis/citation/CBB001230453/)
Article
Rigden, John S.;
Stuewer, Roger H.;
(2012)
Understanding of Quantum Mechanics Eludes Physicists for Eighty-Six Years
(/isis/citation/CBB001221642/)
Article
Freire, Olival, Jr.;
Leyla Joaquim;
Charbel N. El-Hani;
(2015)
Quantum Explorers: Bohr, Jordan, and Delbrück Venturing into Biology
(/isis/citation/CBB446852324/)
Article
Domondon, Andrew T.;
(2006)
Bringing Physics to Bear on the Phenomenon of Life: The Divergent Positions of Bohr, Delbrück, and Schrödinger
(/isis/citation/CBB000770734/)
Article
D'Agostino, Salvo;
(2009)
Il ‘gatto’ di Schroedinger in una lettura del testo originale del celebre saggio
(/isis/citation/CBB314642805/)
Article
Mawhin, Jean;
Ronveaux, André;
(2010)
Schrödinger and Dirac Equations for the Hydrogen Atom, and Laguerre Polynomials
(/isis/citation/CBB001022003/)
Article
Perovic, Slobodan;
(2008)
Why Were Matrix Mechanics and Wave Mechanics Considered Equivalent?
(/isis/citation/CBB000933672/)
Article
Joas, Christian;
Lehner, Christoph;
(2009)
The Classical Roots of Wave Mechanics: Schrödinger's Transformations of the Optical-Mechanical Analogy
(/isis/citation/CBB000933683/)
Book
Meyenn, Karl Von;
(2011)
Eine Entdeckung von ganz außerordentlicher Tragweite: Schrodingers Briefwechsel zur Wellenmechanik und zum Katzenparadoxon
(/isis/citation/CBB001220494/)
Article
Bacciagaluppi, Guido;
Crull, Elise;
(2009)
Heisenberg (and Schrödinger, and Pauli) on Hidden Variables
(/isis/citation/CBB000933686/)
Book
David Kaiser;
Alan Lightman;
(2020)
Quantum Legacies: Dispatches from an Uncertain World
(/isis/citation/CBB385682968/)
Article
Allori, Valia;
Goldstein, Sheldon;
Tumulka, Roderich;
Zanghì, Nino;
(2011)
Many Worlds and Schrödinger's First Quantum Theory
(/isis/citation/CBB001230042/)
Chapter
Valia Allori;
(2009)
La storia del gatto che era sia morto che vivo
(/isis/citation/CBB919785743/)
Book
John L. Heilbron;
Finn Aaserud;
(2013)
Love, Literature and the Quantum Atom: Niels Bohr's 1913 Trilogy Revisited
(/isis/citation/CBB698955890/)
Article
Blai Pié i Valls;
Enric Pérez;
(2016)
The Historical Role of the Adiabatic Principle in Bohr's Quantum Theory
(/isis/citation/CBB403893431/)
Article
Jan Faye;
Rasmus Jaksland;
(2021)
What Bohr wanted Carnap to learn from quantum mechanics
(/isis/citation/CBB067212277/)
Be the first to comment!