Re: [Phys-l] qm texts other than Copenhagen

[John Denker <jsd@av8n.com>]

On 03/24/2010 03:10 PM, David Ward wrote:
> Do any of you know of undergrad-level quantum texts written from a
> perspective different from the Copenhagen interpretation? I have
> heard that Bohm wrote a qm text in the 1950s from some perspective
> that preserved determinism from classical theory.

That's two different questions.  

1) If you just want to avoid Copenhagen, as the Subject: 
line and first question are asking, then you can take any 
textbook I've ever seen and just skip the part (if any!) 
that mentions Copenhagen.

For example, in Feynman volume III, I can't guarantee that
the Copenhagen interpretation is not mentioned, but I 
don't recall seeing it there, and neither "Copenhagen" nor 
"interpretation" nor "collapse" are mentioned in the index.

Undergrad students -- and even grad students -- are very
unlikely to encounter problems that depend on "interpretation"
in any nontrivial way.  They are unlikely to bring up the
subject, and if they do, the questions are generally more
philosophical than practical.

The current thinking among experts on the subject is that
Thoreau got it right:  that which interprets least interprets
best.  The equations of motion get the right answer, and do
not really require interpretation.

2) If the real objective is to "preserve determinism" then
the whole game is not worth playing.  The field has progressed
since the 1950s.  There is absolutely no chance that a hidden
variable theory of the sort Bohm was talking about could be
correct.  John Bell and Alain Aspect have had something to
say about it.