Year: 2022

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FRAGMENT FROM NATURE focuses on a consideration of some of the ideas of the famous quantum physicist Niels Bohr, titled Are we living in a quantum world? Bohr and quantum fundamentalism. Bohr was a Danish physicist “who made foundational contributions to understanding atomic structure and quantum theory, for which he received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1922. Bohr was also a philosopher and a promoter of scientific research.” A remarkable thinker by any standards. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niels_Bohr View in LinkedIn

AUTHOR. “Henrik Zinkernagel has a degree in theoretical physics and a doctorate in philosophy of science. He is a full professor in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Granada.” https://lnkd.in/emyq2BPE View in LinkedIn

A QUANTUM WORLD? “The spectacular successes of quantum physics have made it a commonplace to assert that we live in a quantum world. This idea seems to imply a kind of “quantum fundamentalism” according to which everything in the universe (if not the universe as a whole) is fundamentally of a quantum nature and ultimately describable in quantum-mechanical terms.” https://lnkd.in/eauD5rnp View in LinkedIn

TWO WORLDS. “Bohr’s conception of quantum mechanics has traditionally been seen as opposed to such a view, not least because of his insistence on the necessity of the concepts of classical physics in the account of quantum phenomena.” https://lnkd.in/eauD5rnp View in LinkedIn

BOHR’S POSITION. “Recently, however, a consensus seems to be emerging among careful commentators on Bohr to the effect that he, after all, did subscribe to some version of quantum fundamentalism.” https://lnkd.in/eauD5rnp View in LinkedIn

THE THESIS. “I will defend a variant of the traditional reading of Bohr in which (1) the answer to what an object is (quantum or classical) depends on the experimental context; and (2) in principle, any physical system can be treated quantum-mechanically but not all systems can be treated that way at the same time.” https://lnkd.in/eauD5rnp View in LinkedIn

PARADIGM CHANGE. “Niels Bohr’s 1913 atomic model was a revolutionary step in a development which culminated in the mid-1920s with the theory of quantum mechanics. Ever since then, physicists and philosophers have been discussing what the theory means for our understanding of the world.” https://lnkd.in/eauD5rnp View in LinkedIn

VAST INFLUENCE. “Quantum mechanics is an immensely successful theory. Not only have all its predictions been experimentally confirmed to an unprecedented level of accuracy, allowing for a detailed understanding of the atomic and subatomic aspects of matter; the theory also lies at the heart of many of the technological advances shaping modern society – not least the transistor and therefore all of the electronic equipment that surrounds us.” https://lnkd.in/eauD5rnp View in LinkedIn

DOGMA. “Against this background, it is hardly surprising that many are attracted to the idea that quantum mechanics, or some of its successors like quantum field theory or string theory, is a universal and fundamental theory of the world.” https://lnkd.in/eauD5rnp View in LinkedIn