Books...

Paradigms Regained. A further exploration of the mysteries of modern science. By John Casti.

The Ascent of Science. By Brian Silver.

I HAVE to return these books to my school's Library; I have a hella big late fee fine going on! I'm going to buy the Silver book, for myself...it's one of the most well written books I've read lately.

From PR:
"Measure can only exist if the measuring apparatus obeys the classical laws of physics..."
My question here: Is unmeasured the same as unobserved?

cont, p. 226 -
"...since we always assign a definite value to the measurement (not a probability distribution of possible values), such a measurement can only exist if the measuring apparatus obeys the classical laws of physics. This means we must deal with the cat (Shrodingers) as a macroscopic - not quantum - object. This artifical division of a physical system into a quantum subject and a classical observer has always been the most unsatisfactory aspect of the conventional quantum-mechancial wisdom. It is what gave rise to Von Neumann and Wigners attribution of the role of human consciousness as the agent of the wave functions collapse. And it is also the source of Bohr's complementarity principle, by which an object can display wavelike or particle like behavior..."
"This whole line of argument is superficially similar to another of Niels Bohr's famous principles, what is usually termed the Correspondence Principle. It states that the average behavior of a whole lot of identical quantum systems should mimic the behavior of a classical system. But decoherence addresses more the P of C...That is =, that the object is always both, and it is that degree of decoherence that determines whether we see it more as a classical particle or as a quantum-like wave. " He goes on to say..."The end result is that classical and quantum realities can be reconciled, after all. The classical world is simply embedded within a larger quantum reality, one that manifests itself only in the world of the very small and the very quick."

More on all this later - I HAVE got to return these books!