It is unanimously accepted that the quantum and the classical descriptions of the physical reality are very different, although any quantum process is "mysteriously" transformed through measurement into an observable classical event. Beyond the conceptual differences, quantum and classical physics have a lot in common. And, more important, there are classical and quantum phenomena that are similar although they occur in completely different contexts. For example, the Schrodinger equation has the same mathematical form as the Helmholtz equation, there is an uncertainty relation in optics...
It is unanimously accepted that the quantum and the classical descriptions of the physical reality are very different, although any quantum process...
Each contribution is an article in itself, and great effort has been made by the authors to be lucid and not too technical. A few brief highlights of the round-table discussions are given between the chapters.
Topics include: Quantum non-locality, the measurement problem, quantum insights into relativity, cosmology and thermodynamics, and possible bearings of quantum mechanics to biology and consciousness. Authors include Yakir Aharanov and Anton Zeilinger, plus Nobel laureates Anthony J. Leggett (2003) and Gerardus t Hooft (1999).
Foreword written by Sir Roger Penrose, best-selling...
Each contribution is an article in itself, and great effort has been made by the authors to be lucid and not too technical. A few brief highlights ...
Information and Its Role in Nature presents an in-depth interdisciplinary discussion of the concept of information and its role in the control of natural processes. After a brief review of classical and quantum information theory, the author addresses numerous central questions, including: Is information reducible to the laws of physics and chemistry? Does the Universe, in its evolution, constantly generate new information? Or are information and information-processing exclusive attributes of living systems, related to the very definition of life? If so, what is the role...
Information and Its Role in Nature presents an in-depth interdisciplinary discussion of the concept of information and its role in...
The Thermodynamic Machinery of Life presents the relevant foundations of nonequilibrium thermodynamics as applied to biological processes taking place at the subcellular level. The biological cell is considered as a complex open thermodynamic system far from equilibrium that enzymatically controls various biochemical reactions and transport processes across internal and the cytoplasmatic membrane. The enzymatic free energy and signal transduction processes are described in detail. All the biological molecular machines, also pumps and motors are considered to be effective chemo-chemical...
The Thermodynamic Machinery of Life presents the relevant foundations of nonequilibrium thermodynamics as applied to biological processes taking pl...
Significant, and usually unwelcome, surprises, such as floods, financial crises, or epileptic seizures are the topics of this book. It describes unifying and distinguishing features of extreme events, including problems of understanding and modelling their origin, spatial and temporal extension, and potential impact.
Significant, and usually unwelcome, surprises, such as floods, financial crises, or epileptic seizures are the topics of this book. It describes unify...
How can our societies be stabilized in a crisis? Why can we enjoy and understand Shakespeare? Why are fruitflies uniform? How do omnivorous eating habits aid our survival? What makes the Mona Lisa s smile beautiful? How do women keep our social structures intact? Could there possibly be a single answer to all these questions? This book shows that the statement: "weak links stabilize complex systems" provides the key to understanding each of these intriguing puzzles, and many others too. The author (recipient of several distinguished science communication prizes) uses weak (low affinity,...
How can our societies be stabilized in a crisis? Why can we enjoy and understand Shakespeare? Why are fruitflies uniform? How do omnivorous eating ...
Metaphysics, with which, as fate would have it, I have fallen in love but from which I can boast of only a few favours, o?ers two kinds of advantage. The ?rst is this: it can solve the problems thrown up by the enquiry of mind, when it uses reason to spy after the more hidden properties of things. But hope is here all too often disappointed by the outcome. And, on this occasion, too, satisfaction has escaped our eager grasp. ...] The second advantage of metaphysics is more consonant with the nature of the human understanding. It consists ...] in knowing what relation the question has to...
Metaphysics, with which, as fate would have it, I have fallen in love but from which I can boast of only a few favours, o?ers two kinds of advantage. ...
This book gathers concepts of information across diverse fields physics, electrical engineering and computational science surveying current theories, discussing underlying notions of symmetry, and showing how the capacity of a system to distinguish itself relates to information. The author develops a formal methodology using group theory, leading to the application of Burnside's Lemma to count distinguishable states. This provides a tool to quantify complexity and information capacity in any physical system."
This book gathers concepts of information across diverse fields physics, electrical engineering and computational science surveying current theorie...
"Scientists other than quantum physicists often fail to comprehend the enormity of the conceptual change wrought by quantum theory in our basic conception of the nature of matter," writes Henry Stapp. Stapp is a leading quantum physicist who has given particularly careful thought to the implications of the theory that lies at the heart of modern physics. In this book, which contains several of his key papers as well as new material, he focuses on the problem of consciousness and explains how quantum mechanics allows causally effective conscious thought to be combined in a natural way with...
"Scientists other than quantum physicists often fail to comprehend the enormity of the conceptual change wrought by quantum theory in our basic con...
This expanded second edition of Relativity and the Nature of Spacetime c- tains several major changes and a number of additions to different ch- ters. Two chapters (Chaps. 6 and 7), which discussed two speci?c groups of arguments against the reality of spacetime, have been transformed into - pendices (A and B). Two new chapters (Chaps. 6 and 10) have been added. Chapter 6, entitled Why Is the Issue of the Nature of Spacetime So Imp- tant?, elaborates on what was Sect. 5. 6 of the ?rst edition, and addresses some recent work on the nature of spacetime for example, the growing (or evolving)...
This expanded second edition of Relativity and the Nature of Spacetime c- tains several major changes and a number of additions to different ch- ters....
