Identity in physics : a historical, philosophical, and formal analysis /

This is a very ambitious project--trying to resolve quandaries in the logical foundations of quantum statistical mechanics by axiomatically constructing a nonstandard "Quasi-set Theory" whose elements ("dinge," things) are related so as to resolve the ambiguities in the meaning of "identity," "indistinguishability," and "interchangeability" that plague the "particle interpretation" of modern theory. Quasi-set theory "enters as a way of considering collections of indistinguishable but not identical objects." Philosopher French (Univ. of Leeds, UK) has done a masterful job of surveying the problems in countability, from classical statistical mechanics to quantum logics and Bell Theorem difficulties, and logician Krause (Federal Univ. of Santa Catarina) has provided a rigorous theory implicitly addressing these topics. This book is accessible only to scholars of advanced standing in statistical mechanics and mathematical logic, and those few may wonder if a topology or measure theory can be constructed so as to address the current discourse in phase-space representation, carefully surveyed in Physics and Chance: Issues in the Foundations of Statistical Mechanics by Lawrence Sklar (CH, Jun'94, 31-5516). ^BSumming Up: Recommended. Graduate students; faculty and researchers. P. D. Skiff Bard College