Paradox Lost: Images of the Quantum [Paperback]

Medical scientists use the word `iatrogenic' to refer to disabilities that are the consequence of medical treatment. We believe that some such word might be coined to refer to philosophical difficulties for which philosophers themselves are responsible Sir Peter Medawar Arguing that quantum theory as it stands is perhaps the most comprehensive, well-verified, and successful theory in the history of science, the author clears away the impression that it is an incomplete, philosophically flawed, and self-contradictory theory. In simple terms accessible to anyone with a little prior knowledge of science, Wallace examines the numerous paradoxes and difficulties claimed for quantum mechanics, and shows that they are due to excesses of interpretation that have been imposed on the theory.1. Introduction.- 2. Beyond the Ether.- 3. Introduction to Quantum Mechanics.- 4. Analysis of the Photoelectric Effect.- 5. De Broglie and Electron Waves.- 5.1. Amplitude, Phase, and Interference.- 6. The Wave Function and Feynmans Two-Slit Experiment.- 7. The Pauli Exclusion Principle: the Identity of Particles.- 8. The Schrodinger Wave Equation and the Hydrogen Atom.- 9. Critique of the Pointlike Electron.- 10. Complementary Attributes and the Uncertainty Principle.- 11. An Illustration: Polarized Light.- 12. Heisenberg and Measurement.- 13. More on Measurement.- 14. Further Reflections on the Bohr-Peierls Interpretation.- 15. Toward the Dirac Viewpoint.- 15.1. The Dirac Version.- 16. Feynmans Path Integral Method.- 17. Are Fields All?.- 18. A Visit with Photons: Identity and Flexibility.- 19. Can Wave Packets Be Particles?.- 20. The Quantum Stellar Interferometer of Hanbury Brown.- 21. About the Delayed-Choice Experiment.- 22. The Illusion of Superluminal Signaling.- 22.1. Davies Split Box and Wave Function Collapse.- 22.2. The Modified EPR Experiment with Photons.- 23. The Meaning of Bells Theorem.- 24. Symmetry and Point Particles.- 25. The Quantum Mechanlc)