Jeffrey A. Barrett

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Jeffrey A. Barrett is Chancellor's Professor in Logic and Philosophy of Science at the University of California, Irvine, where he specializes in philosophy of physics.

Contents

Education and career

He earned his Ph.D. in philosophy at Columbia University. [1]

In 2022, he was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences. [2]

Philosophical work

Barrett is known for his work on the measurement problem of quantum mechanics (why and how quantum systems collapse when one measures them), and particularly on the many-worlds interpretation of Hugh Everett.

His book The Quantum Mechanics of Minds and Worlds (Oxford University Press, 2000) concerns this problem and its solutions, [3] and his book with Peter Byrne, The Everett Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics: Collected Works 1955-1980 with Commentary (Princeton University Press, 2012) collects the works of Everett himself on this problem. [4]

Related Research Articles

Many-worlds interpretation Interpretation of quantum mechanics which denies the collapse of the wavefunction

The many-worlds interpretation (MWI) is an interpretation of quantum mechanics that asserts that the universal wavefunction is objectively real, and that there is no wave function collapse. This implies that all possible outcomes of quantum measurements are physically realized in some "world" or universe. In contrast to some other interpretations, such as the Copenhagen interpretation, the evolution of reality as a whole in MWI is rigidly deterministic. Many-worlds is also called the relative state formulation or the Everett interpretation, after physicist Hugh Everett, who first proposed it in 1957. Bryce DeWitt popularized the formulation and named it many-worlds in the 1970s.

An interpretation of quantum mechanics is an attempt to explain how the mathematical theory of quantum mechanics "corresponds" to reality. Although quantum mechanics has held up to rigorous and extremely precise tests in an extraordinarily broad range of experiments, there exist a number of contending schools of thought over their interpretation. These views on interpretation differ on such fundamental questions as whether quantum mechanics is deterministic or stochastic, which elements of quantum mechanics can be considered real, and what the nature of measurement is, among other matters.

Wigner's friend is a thought experiment in theoretical quantum physics, first conceived by the physicist Eugene Wigner in 1961, and further developed by David Deutsch in 1985. The scenario involves an indirect observation of a quantum measurement: An observer observes another observer F who performs a quantum measurement on a physical system. The two observers then formulate a statement about the physical system's state after the measurement according to the laws of quantum theory. However, in most of the interpretations of quantum theory, the resulting statements of the two observers contradict each other. This reflects a seeming incompatibility of two laws in quantum theory: the deterministic and continuous time evolution of the state of a closed system and the nondeterministic, discontinuous collapse of the state of a system upon measurement. Wigner's friend is therefore directly linked to the measurement problem in quantum mechanics with its famous Schrödinger's cat paradox.

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References

  1. https://faculty.sites.uci.edu/jeffreybarrett/
  2. https://www.amacad.org/new-members-2022
  3. Reviews of The Quantum Mechanics of Minds and Worlds:
    • Arageorgis, Aristidis (June 2001), The Review of Metaphysics, 54 (4): 904–905, JSTOR   20131625 {{citation}}: CS1 maint: untitled periodical (link)
    • Becker, Lon (July 2001), The Philosophical Review, 110 (3): 482–484, doi:10.2307/2693670, JSTOR   2693670 {{citation}}: CS1 maint: untitled periodical (link)
    • Saunders, S. (October 2001), Mind, 110 (440): 1039–1043, doi:10.1093/mind/110.440.1039 {{citation}}: CS1 maint: untitled periodical (link)
    • Myrvold, Wayne (September 2002), Philosophy of Science, 69 (3): 536–538, doi:10.1086/342458, S2CID   125572230 {{citation}}: CS1 maint: untitled periodical (link)
  4. Reviews of Everett Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics. Collected Works:
    • Bacciagaluppi, Guido (September 2013), HOPOS: The Journal of the International Society for the History of Philosophy of Science, 3 (2): 348–352, doi:10.1086/671743 {{citation}}: CS1 maint: untitled periodical (link)
    • Sauer, Tilman (November 2013), The British Journal for the History of Science, 46 (4): 731–732, doi:10.1017/s0007087413000812 {{citation}}: CS1 maint: untitled periodical (link)
    • Lehner, Christoph (March 2015), Isis, 106 (1): 220–221, doi:10.1086/681886 {{citation}}: CS1 maint: untitled periodical (link)
    • Richmond, Sheldon (2015), "Review", Philosophy in Review, 35 (3)