Emily Adlam - Böcker

The quantum measurement problem refers to a collection of unresolved questions about what happens during the measurement of a quantum system. The measurement problem must be solved in order for us to understand what kind of underlying reality could be compatible with the mathematical formalism of quantum mechanics. The existing literature on the measurement problem typically views the problem through the lens of ontology and metaphysics. Adlam reconceptualizes the quantum measurement problem as a problem of epistemology, and in doing so presents a novel perspective on the issue, offering a new approach to finding valid solutions. Once we understand the importance of epistemology to the measurement problem, it becomes clear that several popular proposals have epistemic flaws which threaten their viability as solutions. This reframing helps clear the field so we can see where future research should be focused. Saving Science from Quantum Mechanics delves into the subtle relationship between physics and epistemology, exploring how they constrain and inspire each other. It will use the measurement problem to motivate a wide-ranging account of the epistemology of science and to highlight the role of coherence in justifying the use of measurements and observations in the scientific process.

The programme of 'constructive axiomatics', promulgated by Hans Reichenbach in 1924, seeks to build up the architecture of our best theories of physics from basic axioms supposedly imbued with immediate and indubitable empirical content. Taking inspiration from Reichenbach, Hermann Weyl proposed his own 'causal-inertial' approach to the constructive axiomatization of Einstein's general relativity, according to which a relativistic spacetime can be constructed solely from the trajectories of light rays and freely-falling particles; this project, however, came to fruition only in 1972, with the constructive axiomatization of general relativity due to Ehlers, Pirani, and Schild ('EPS').One century since Reichenbach, and fifty years since EPS, Constructive Axiomatics for Spacetime Physics is a celebration of the constructive axiomatic methodology. It achieves four main tasks. First, it provides a thoroughgoing presentation of the EPS axiomatization, closing missing loopholes, identifying problematic axioms, and so forth—in this way, one gains a much-improved appreciation of the extent to which a causal-inertial approach to general relativity might succeed, and of what such an approach might offer. Second, it synthesizes and assesses the vast but disparate literature on constructive axiomatics which has arisen over the past century and sets the methodology in its proper philosophical context. Third, it generalizes the approach to apply to quantum spacetimes. And fourth, it applies the approach to the context of non-relativistic spacetime physics. All in all, the book demonstrates that constructive axiomatics is live-and-kicking; the book will become the go-to resource for this way of philosophizing about the nature of space and time.