Science is at a cross-roads. For several decades, the Standard Model of particle physics has managed to fit vast amounts of particle scattering data remarkably well, but many questions remain. During those decades, some sophisticated theoretical hypotheses such as string theory, quantum gravity, and quantum cosmology have been proposed and studied intensively, in an effort to break the log-jam of the Standard Model. None of those hypotheses have succeeded to date. Of greater concern is the increasing tendency by some practitioners in those fields to downplay the empirical principles of science.In response, this book is a restatement of those principles, covering numerous aspects of observation. A particular focus is on contextuality versus realism, the two fundamentally contrasting ideologies that underpin modern physics.

Scientists have been debating the meaning of quantum mechanics for more than a century. This book for graduate students and researchers gets to the root of the problem: how the contextual nature of empirical truth and the laws of observation impact on our understanding of quantum physics. Bridging the gap between non-relativistic quantum mechanics and quantum field theory, this novel approach to quantum mechanics extends the standard formalism to cover the observer and their apparatus. The author demystifies some of the aspects of quantum mechanics that have traditionally been regarded as extraordinary, such as wave-particle duality and quantum superposition, emphasizing the scientific principles rather than the mathematical modelling. Including key experiments and worked examples throughout, the author encourages the reader to focus on empirically sound concepts and avoid metaphysical speculation. Originally released in 2017, this title has been reissued as an Open Access publication on Cambridge Core.

The structural aspects of composite quantum systems in the foundation, interpretation and application of quantum theory is an increasingly prominent topic of physics research. As an emerging field, it seeks to understand the origins of the classical world of experience from the quantum level.Quantum Structural Studies presents conceptual fundamentals and mathematical methods for investigating the structuring of quantum systems into subsystems. Split into four sections, the topics covered include the historical and philosophical aspects of quantum structures, specific interpretive approaches and ontologies, and alternative methodological approaches to quantum mechanics. Questions addressed are: Specialists, graduate students and researchers seeking an introduction to the field of emergent structures and new directions for research and experimentation can use this book to find up-to-date representative texts and reviews.

Scientists have been debating the meaning of quantum mechanics for more than a century. This book for graduate students and researchers gets to the root of the problem: how the contextual nature of empirical truth and the laws of observation impact on our understanding of quantum physics. Bridging the gap between non-relativistic quantum mechanics and quantum field theory, this novel approach to quantum mechanics extends the standard formalism to cover the observer and their apparatus. The author demystifies some of the aspects of quantum mechanics that have traditionally been regarded as extraordinary, such as wave-particle duality and quantum superposition, emphasizing the scientific principles rather than the mathematical modelling. Including key experiments and worked examples throughout, the author encourages the reader to focus on empirically sound concepts and avoid metaphysical speculation. Originally released in 2017, this title has been reissued as an Open Access publication on Cambridge Core.

Have you ever wondered how Einstein, a regular man, can come up with radical ideas that shape the world to be what it is today?Albert Einstein is a familiar name to many in the scientific and non-scientific community due to his revolutionary ideas such as the Theory of Relativity, Special Relativity and significant contributions to the development of Quantum Mechanics. As such, many aspire to be like him and wonder how they can do that. The author believes that one needs to condition his/her mind to be able to think like the world-renowned Mathematical Physicist, Albert Einstein. The road to being successful can be challenging and it requires grit, confidence and guidance from the right people. Hence, this book is as a must-have guide to readers who wish to be one of the best scientists in the world!Related Link(s)

Have you ever wondered how Einstein, a regular man, can come up with radical ideas that shape the world to be what it is today?Albert Einstein is a familiar name to many in the scientific and non-scientific community due to his revolutionary ideas such as the Theory of Relativity, Special Relativity and significant contributions to the development of Quantum Mechanics. As such, many aspire to be like him and wonder how they can do that. The author believes that one needs to condition his/her mind to be able to think like the world-renowned Mathematical Physicist, Albert Einstein. The road to being successful can be challenging and it requires grit, confidence and guidance from the right people. Hence, this book is as a must-have guide to readers who wish to be one of the best scientists in the world!Related Link(s)

Have you ever wondered about Time: what it is or how to discuss it? If you have, then you may have been bewildered by the many different views and opinions in many diverse fields to be found, such as physics, mathematics, philosophy, religion, history, and science fiction novels and films. This book will help you unravel fact from fiction. It provides a broad survey of many of these views, these images of time, covering historical, cultural, philosophical, biological, mathematical and physical images of time, including classical and quantum mechanics, special and general relativity and cosmology. This book gives you more than just a review of such images. It provides the reader a basis for judging the scientific soundness of these various images. It develops the reader's critical ability to distinguish Images of Time in terms of its contextual completeness. Differentiating between metaphysical images (which cannot be scientifically validated) and those that could, in principle, be put to empirical test. Showing that mathematical and classical mechanical images are more complete, and genuine quantum mechanics based images have the greatest degree of contextual completeness. Through the use of a simple algorithm, the reader can decide the classification of any of the images of time discussed in this book. These distinctions are of particular importance in this day and age, when we are flooded by a plethora of competing Images of Time. Many of these have no scientific basis or empirical support or content. This book will be of value not only to philosophers, scientists and students, but also to the general reader interested in this fundamental topic, because it introduces a method of distinguishing between science fiction and science fact.

Could time be discrete on some unimaginably small scale? Exploring the idea in depth, this unique introduction to discrete time mechanics systematically builds the theory up from scratch, beginning with the historical, physical and mathematical background to the chronon hypothesis. Covering classical and quantum discrete time mechanics, this book presents all the tools needed to formulate and develop applications of discrete time mechanics in a number of areas, including spreadsheet mechanics, classical and quantum register mechanics, and classical and quantum mechanics and field theories. A consistent emphasis on contextuality and the observer-system relationship is maintained throughout.