The Oxford Handbook of the History of Quantum Interpretations

Crucial to most research in physics, as well as leading to the development of inventions such as the transistor and the laser, quantum mechanics approaches its centenary with an impressive record. However, the field has also long been the subject of ongoing debates about the foundations and interpretation of the theory, referred to as the quantum controversy. This Oxford Handbook explores the contrasts at the heart of the history and development of quantum physics, as well as providing a fascinating examination of the future potential of the subject to influence new discoveries and advances in quantum information and computing, among other fields. Drawing on the wide-ranging expertise of several contributors working across physics, history, and philosophy, this engaging introduction is an essential guide for all those interested in the history of scientific controversies and history of quantum physics.

1 - Quantum Mechanics is Routinely Used in Laboratories with Great Success, but No Consensus on its Interpretation has Emerged
2 - Philosophical Issues Raised by Quantum Theory and its Interpretations
3 - Quantization conditions, 1900-1927
4 - Of weighting and counting: statistics and ontology in the old quantum theory
5 - Dead as a doornail? Zero-point energy and Low-temperature physics in early quantum theory
6 - The early debates about the interpretation of quantum mechanics by
7 - Foundations and applications: the creative tension in the early development of quantum mechanics
8 - The statistical interpretation: Born, Heisenberg and von Neumann, 1926-27
9 - A perennially grinning Cheshire cat? Over a century of experiments on light quanta and their perplexing interpretations
10 - The evolving understanding of quantum statistics
11 - The measurement problem
12 - Einstein's criticisms of quantum mechanics
13 - Tackling loopholes in experimental tests of Bell's inequality
14 - The measuring process in quantum field theory
15 - The interpretation debate and quantum gravity
16 - Quantum information and the quest for reconstruction of quantum theory
17 - Natural reconstructions of quantum mechanics
18 - The axiomatization of quantum theory through functional analysis: Hilbert, von Neumann, and beyon
19 - Tony Leggett's challenge to quantum mechanics and its path to decoherence
20 - The Copenhagen interpretation
21 - Copenhagen and Niels Bohr
22 - Grete Hermann's Interpretation of quantum mechanics
23 - Instrumentation and the foundations of quantum mechanics
24 - Early solvay councils: rhetorical lenses for quantum convergence and divergence
25 - The foundations of quantum mechanics in post-war Italy's cultural context
26 - Foundation of quantum physics in the Soviet Union
27 - Early japanese reactions to the interpretation of quantum mechanics, 1927-1943
28 - Form and meaning: textbooks, pedagogy, and the canonical genres of quantum mechanics
29 - Chien-Shiung Wu's contributions to experimental philosophy
30 - On how Epistemological Letters changed the foundations of quantum mechanics
31 - Quantum interpretations and 20th century philosophy of science
32 - Bohr and the epistemological lesson of quantum mechanics
33 - Making sense of the century-old scientific controversy over the quanta
34 - Orthodoxy and heterodoxy in the postwar era
35 - The reception of the Forman thesis in modernity and postmodernity
36 - Quantum historiography and cultural history: revisiting the Forman thesis
37 - The co-creation of classical and modern physics and the foundations of quantum mechanics
38 - Interpretation in electrodynamics, atomic theory, and quantum mechanics
39 - Hidden variables
40 - Pure wave mechanics, relative states, and many worlds
41 - Is QBism a possible solution to the conceptual problems of quantum mechanics?
42 - Agential realism: a relation ontology interpretation
43 - Relational interpretation
44 - The philosophy of wholeness and the general and new concept of order: Bohm's and Penrose's points of view
45 - Spontaneous localization theories: quantum philosophy between history and physics
46 - The non-individuals interpretation of quantum mechanics
47 - Modal interpretations of quantum mechanics
48 - A brief historical perspective on the consistent histories interpretation of quantum mechanics
49 - Einstein, Bohm and Bell: a comedy of errors
50 - The statistical (ensemble) interpretation of quantum mechanics
51 - Stochastic interpretations of quantum mechanics

Olival Freire Jr is Professor of Physics and History of Science at the Universidade Federal da Bahia, Brazil. He is the author of The Quantum Dissidents (2015) and David Bohm: A Life Dedicated to Understanding the Quantum World (2019). In 2011 he co-edited Teoria quântica: estudos históricos e implicações culturais with Osvaldo Pessoa Jr. and Joan Lisa Bromberg and was awarded the Jabuti Prize in Science & Technology, the most important literary prize in Brazil.