•  10
    New Frontiers for Theological and Scientific Imagination
    Philosophy, Theology and the Sciences 10 (1): 112. 2023.
  •  26
    Interpretation Neutrality for Quantum Theology
    Zygon 58 (1): 246-264. 2023.
    Within contemporary scientific and science-adjacent communities, it is generally accepted that quantum physics is our best theory. For this reason, it is understandable—and laudable—that scholars interested in questions at the intersection of science and theology wish to meaningfully engage with this physics. Recent work in foundations of physics has, however, importantly altered the landscape of quantum theory; in this article, my goal is to introduce these advances, then make an argument withi…Read more
  •  11
    Hermann and the Relative Context of Observation
    In Elise Crull & Guido Bacciagaluppi (eds.), Grete Hermann - Between Physics and Philosophy, Springer. 2016.
    Prior analyses of Grete Hermann’s 1935 essay on the philosophical foundations of quantum mechanics have taken her central aim to be the recovery of an appropriately Kantian notion of causality from this new indeterministic physics. I argue that if one instead reads this essay as primarily an investigation into the meaning and implications of the relative nature of quantum mechanics—not only for physics, but also for fields as different as ethics—certain dimensions of her work appear with greater…Read more
  •  11
    This is an English translation of Ehrenfest's influential 1925 paper, 'Energy fluctuations in the radiation field or crystal lattice through superposition of quantized normal modes'.
  •  33
    Grete Hermann was a pupil of mathematical physicist Emmy Noether, follower and co-worker of neo-Kantian philosopher Leonard Nelson, and an important intellectual figure in post-war German social democracy. She is best known for her work on the philosophy of modern physics in the 1930s, some of which emerged from intense discussions with Heisenberg and Weizsäcker in Leipzig. Hermann’s aim was to counter the threat to the Kantian notion of causality coming from quantum mechanics. She also discusse…Read more
  •  30
    Jordan's derivation of blackbody fluctuations
    Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part B: Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics 60 23-34. 2017.
    The celebrated Dreimännerarbeit by Born, Heisenberg and Jordan contains a matrix-mechanical derivation by Jordan of Planck’s formula for blackbody fluctuations. Jordan appears to have considered this to be one of his finest contributions to quantum theory, but the status of his derivation is puzzling. In our Dreimenschenarbeit, we show how to understand what Jordan was doing in the double context of a Boltzmannian approach to statistical mechanics and of the early ‘statistical interpretation’ of…Read more
  •  52
    Yes, More Decoherence: A Reply to Critics
    Foundations of Physics 47 (11): 1428-1463. 2017.
    Recently I published an article in this journal entitled “Less interpretation and more decoherence in quantum gravity and inflationary cosmology” :1019–1045, 2015). This article generated responses from three pairs of authors: Vassallo and Esfeld :1533–1536, 2015), Okon and Sudarsky :852–879, 2016) and Fortin and Lombardi. In what follows, I reply to the criticisms raised by these authors.
  •  122
    Exploring Philosophical Implications of Quantum Decoherence
    Philosophy Compass 8 (9): 875-885. 2013.
    Quantum decoherence is receiving a great deal of attention today not only in theoretical and experimental physics but also in branches of science as diverse as molecular biology, biochemistry, and even neuropsychology. It is no surprise that it is also beginning to appear in various philosophical debates concerning the fundamental structure of the world. The purpose of this article is primarily to acquaint non-specialists with quantum decoherence and clarify related concepts, and secondly to ske…Read more
  •  143
    Heisenberg (and Schrödinger, and Pauli) on hidden variables
    Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part B: Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics 40 (4): 374-382. 2009.
    In this paper, we discuss various aspects of Heisenberg’s thought on hidden variables in the period 1927–1935. We also compare Heisenberg’s approach to others current at the time, specifically that embodied by von Neumann’s impossibility proof, but also views expressed mainly in correspondence by Pauli and by Schroedinger. We shall base ourselves mostly on published and unpublished materials that are known but little-studied, among others Heisenberg’s own draft response to the EPR paper. Our aim…Read more
  •  671
    Advocates of scientic realism typically respond to the challenge of the pessimistic meta-induction by turning to the history of science. The episode most frequently discussed is the shift from Fresnel's wave theory of light to Maxwell's electromagnetism. This particular history is taken to represent one of the hardest problems for the realist, for while it exhibits continuity on the empirical level, it simultaneously represents a dramatic shift in ontology. Thus, various authors have proposed me…Read more
  •  169
    I argue that quantum decoherence—understood as a dynamical process entailed by the standard formalism alone—carries us beyond conceptual aspects of non-relativistic quantum mechanics deemed insurmountable by many contributors to the recent quantum gravity and cosmology literature. These aspects include various incarnations of the measurement problem and of the quantum -to-classical puzzle. Not only can such problems be largely bypassed or dissolved without default to a particular interpretation,…Read more
  •  68
    The publication of the EPR paper in 1935 prompted Heisenberg to draft a manuscript on the question of the completability of quantum mechanics. We give here the English translation of this manuscript with a brief introduction and bibliography.
  •  99
    Epistemic Structural Realism and Poincare's Philosophy of Science
    Hopos: The Journal of the International Society for the History of Philosophy of Science 7 (1): 108-129. 2017.
    Recent discussions of structuralist approaches to scientific theories have stemmed primarily from Worrall's, in which he defends a position whose historical roots he attributes to Poincare. In the renewed debate inspired by Worrall, it is thus not uncommon to find Poincare's name associated with various structuralist positions. However, Poincare's structuralism is deeply entwined with both his conventionalism and his idealism, and in this paper we explore the nature of these dependencies. What c…Read more