TY - BOOK ID - 80817009 TI - Quantum theory as an emergent phenomenon PY - 2004 SN - 9780511535277 9780521831949 9780521115971 0511216556 9780511216558 0511535279 9780511207600 0511207603 1280516100 9781280516108 051121118X 9780511211188 0521831946 051121295X 9780511212956 1107148618 9781107148611 9786610516100 6610516103 0511214766 9780511214769 0511315333 9780511315336 PB - Cambridge, UK New York Cambridge University Press DB - UniCat KW - Quantum theory KW - Quantum dynamics KW - Quantum mechanics KW - Quantum physics KW - Physics KW - Mechanics KW - Thermodynamics KW - Quantum theory. KW - Physics. KW - Natural philosophy KW - Philosophy, Natural KW - Physical sciences KW - Dynamics UR - https://www.unicat.be/uniCat?func=search&query=sysid:80817009 AB - Quantum mechanics is our most successful physical theory. However, it raises conceptual issues that have perplexed physicists and philosophers of science for decades. This 2004 book develops an approach, based on the proposal that quantum theory is not a complete, final theory, but is in fact an emergent phenomenon arising from a deeper level of dynamics. The dynamics at this deeper level are taken to be an extension of classical dynamics to non-commuting matrix variables, with cyclic permutation inside a trace used as the basic calculational tool. With plausible assumptions, quantum theory is shown to emerge as the statistical thermodynamics of this underlying theory, with the canonical commutation/anticommutation relations derived from a generalized equipartition theorem. Brownian motion corrections to this thermodynamics are argued to lead to state vector reduction and to the probabilistic interpretation of quantum theory, making contact with phenomenological proposals for stochastic modifications to Schrödinger dynamics. ER -