QBism : the future of quantum physics /

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Bibliographic Details
Author / Creator:Von Baeyer, Hans Christian, author.
Imprint:Cambridge, Massachusetts : Harvard University Press, 2016.
©2016
Description:1 online resource (viii, 257 pages) : illustrations
Language:English
Subject:
Format: E-Resource Book
URL for this record:http://pi.lib.uchicago.edu/1001/cat/bib/12016991
Hidden Bibliographic Details
Other authors / contributors:Von Baeyer, Lili, illustrator.
ISBN:9780674545342
0674545346
9780674504646
067450464X
Notes:Includes bibliographical references (pages 241-245) and index.
Print version record.
Summary:Measured by the accuracy of its predictions and the scope of its technological applications, quantum mechanics is arguably the most successful theory in science. Ironically, it is also one of the least well understood. Here the conventional view of quantum mechanics is outlined in simple, non-mathematical language, with emphasis on its most puzzling features. The key to understanding is probability, a common, everyday concept that turns out to be surprisingly problematic. Until 2002 all of the alternative interpretations of quantum mechanics relied on the modern, orthodox definition of probability that is taught in high school. Then a trio of theoretical physicists in USA and Britain suggested reverting to an older definition, called Bayesian probability and used routinely in other fields of science. Thus Quantum Bayesianism, abbreviated QBism, was born. According to QBism, probabilities are personal and subjective -- degrees of belief rather than objectively verifiable facts. QBism, for all its unconventionality, dissolves most of the weirdness of quantum mechanics even as it opens a window on a more personally engaging, more appealing and humane view of the universe.--
Other form:Print version: Von Baeyer, Hans Christian. QBism. Cambridge, Massachusetts : Harvard University Press, 2016 9780674504646
Description
Summary:

Measured by the accuracy of its predictions and the scope of its technological applications, quantum mechanics is one of the most successful theories in science--as well as one of the most misunderstood. The deeper meaning of quantum mechanics remains controversial almost a century after its invention. Providing a way past quantum theory's paradoxes and puzzles, QBism offers a strikingly new interpretation that opens up for the nonspecialist reader the profound implications of quantum mechanics for how we understand and interact with the world.

Short for Quantum Bayesianism, QBism adapts many of the conventional features of quantum mechanics in light of a revised understanding of probability. Bayesian probability, unlike the standard "frequentist probability," is defined as a numerical measure of the degree of an observer's belief that a future event will occur or that a particular proposition is true. Bayesianism's advantages over frequentist probability are that it is applicable to singular events, its probability estimates can be updated based on acquisition of new information, and it can effortlessly include frequentist results. But perhaps most important, much of the weirdness associated with quantum theory--the idea that an atom can be in two places at once, or that signals can travel faster than the speed of light, or that Schrödinger's cat can be simultaneously dead and alive--dissolves under the lens of QBism.

Using straightforward language without equations, Hans Christian von Baeyer clarifies the meaning of quantum mechanics in a commonsense way that suggests a new approach to physics in general.

Physical Description:1 online resource (viii, 257 pages) : illustrations
Bibliography:Includes bibliographical references (pages 241-245) and index.
ISBN:9780674545342
0674545346
9780674504646
067450464X