Peter J. Lewis

The Meaning of the Wave Function: In Search of the Ontology of Quantum Mechanics

Reviewed by Peter J. Lewis, Dartmouth College Shan Gao (2017), The Meaning of the Wave Function: In Search of the Ontology of Quantum Mechanics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Shan Gao has written an exemplary book on the nature of the wave function—its theoretical role, the ontology it represents, and how understanding this ontology can contribute to solving the measurement problem…. Read more →

What’’s wrong with the wave function?

The call to supplement the wave function with local beables is almost as old as quantum mechanics. But what exactly is the problem with the wave function as the representation of a quantum system? I canvass three potential problems with the wave function: the well-known problems of incompleteness and dimensionality, and the lesser known problem of non-locality introduced recently by… Read more →

Measurement and Metaphysics

It is a prima facie reasonable assumption that if a physical quantity is measurable, then it corresponds to a genuine physical property of the measured system. You can measure a person’s mass because human beings have such a property. You can measure the average mass of a group of people because groups of people have such a collective property. And so on. Now it… Read more →