A Discussion of the Wheeler-Feynman Absorber Theory of Radiation

A Discussion of the Wheeler-Feynman Absorber Theory of Radiation
Author: Ronald G. Newburgh
Publisher:
Total Pages: 34
Release: 1965
Genre: Absorption
ISBN:

The Wheeler-Feynman absorber theory of radiation is reviewed. A proof is offered to show that a sum of advanced and retarded effects from the absorber can provide the origin of radiative reaction. This proof is different from and perhaps simpler than that of Wheeler and Feynman. From arguments of momentum and energy conservation the necessity of the absorber for the emission of radiation is demonstrated for three cases. (Author).

Scientific and Technical Aerospace Reports

Scientific and Technical Aerospace Reports
Author:
Publisher:
Total Pages: 840
Release: 1966
Genre: Aeronautics
ISBN:

Lists citations with abstracts for aerospace related reports obtained from world wide sources and announces documents that have recently been entered into the NASA Scientific and Technical Information Database.

The Transactional Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics

The Transactional Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics
Author: Ruth E. Kastner
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 233
Release: 2012-10-18
Genre: Science
ISBN: 1139788779

A comprehensive exposition of the transactional interpretation of quantum mechanics (TI), this book sheds new light on longstanding problems in quantum theory and provides insight into the compatibility of TI with relativity. It breaks new ground in interpreting quantum theory, presenting a compelling new picture of quantum reality. The book shows how TI can be used to solve the measurement problem of quantum mechanics and explain other puzzles, such as the origin of the 'Born Rule' for the probabilities of measurement results. It addresses and resolves various objections and challenges to TI, such as Maudlin's inconsistency challenge. It explicitly extends TI into the relativistic domain, providing new insight into the basic compatibility of TI with relativity and the physical meaning of 'virtual particles'. This book is ideal for researchers and graduate students interested in the philosophy of physics and the interpretation of quantum mechanics.

Research Review

Research Review
Author: United States. Air Force. Office of Aerospace Research
Publisher:
Total Pages: 518
Release: 1965
Genre:
ISBN:

Inconsistency, Asymmetry, and Non-Locality

Inconsistency, Asymmetry, and Non-Locality
Author: Mathias Frisch
Publisher: OUP USA
Total Pages: 223
Release: 2005-03-31
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0195172159

Electrodynamics has largely been ignored by philosophers of science due to what Mathias Frisch says is a mistaken view that it is conceptually unproblematic. Part of the goal of this book is to show that classical physics, while successful in describing phenomena, has some very interesting conceptual problems worth discussing. The other goal of the book is to argue that the theory electrodynamics, a core theory of modern physics and one that's widely held, leaves out some important aspects of scientific theorizing, namely that the notion that consistency is over-valued, and that an inconsistent theory can still be successful.

The Quantum Labyrinth

The Quantum Labyrinth
Author: Paul Halpern
Publisher: Basic Books
Total Pages: 359
Release: 2017-10-17
Genre: Science
ISBN: 0465097596

The story of the unlikely friendship between the two physicists who fundamentally recast the notion of time and history In 1939, Richard Feynman, a brilliant graduate of MIT, arrived in John Wheeler's Princeton office to report for duty as his teaching assistant. A lifelong friendship and enormously productive collaboration was born, despite sharp differences in personality. The soft-spoken Wheeler, though conservative in appearance, was a raging nonconformist full of wild ideas about the universe. The boisterous Feynman was a cautious physicist who believed only what could be tested. Yet they were complementary spirits. Their collaboration led to a complete rethinking of the nature of time and reality. It enabled Feynman to show how quantum reality is a combination of alternative, contradictory possibilities, and inspired Wheeler to develop his landmark concept of wormholes, portals to the future and past. Together, Feynman and Wheeler made sure that quantum physics would never be the same again.

Feynman's Thesis

Feynman's Thesis
Author: Richard Phillips Feynman
Publisher: World Scientific
Total Pages: 142
Release: 2005
Genre: Science
ISBN: 9812563660

Richard Feynman's never previously published doctoral thesis formed the heart of much of his brilliant and profound work in theoretical physics. Entitled ?The Principle of Least Action in Quantum Mechanics," its original motive was to quantize the classical action-at-a-distance electrodynamics. Because that theory adopted an overall space?time viewpoint, the classical Hamiltonian approach used in the conventional formulations of quantum theory could not be used, so Feynman turned to the Lagrangian function and the principle of least action as his points of departure.The result was the path integral approach, which satisfied ? and transcended ? its original motivation, and has enjoyed great success in renormalized quantum field theory, including the derivation of the ubiquitous Feynman diagrams for elementary particles. Path integrals have many other applications, including atomic, molecular, and nuclear scattering, statistical mechanics, quantum liquids and solids, Brownian motion, and noise theory. It also sheds new light on fundamental issues like the interpretation of quantum theory because of its new overall space?time viewpoint.The present volume includes Feynman's Princeton thesis, the related review article ?Space?Time Approach to Non-Relativistic Quantum Mechanics? [Reviews of Modern Physics 20 (1948), 367?387], Paul Dirac's seminal paper ?The Lagrangian in Quantum Mechanics'' [Physikalische Zeitschrift der Sowjetunion, Band 3, Heft 1 (1933)], and an introduction by Laurie M Brown.

The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Time

The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Time
Author: Craig Callender
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 704
Release: 2011-04-07
Genre: Science
ISBN: 0191617245

As the study of time has flourished in the physical and human sciences, the philosophy of time has come into its own as a lively and diverse area of academic research. Philosophers investigate not just the metaphysics of time, and our experience and representation of time, but the role of time in ethics and action, and philosophical issues in the sciences of time, especially with regard to quantum mechanics and relativity theory. This Handbook presents twenty-three specially written essays by leading figures in their fields: it is the first comprehensive collaborative study of the philosophy of time, and will set the agenda for future work.