The book ''Mathematical Foundations of Quantum Mechanics'' (1932) by
John von Neumann
John von Neumann (; hu, Neumann János Lajos, ; December 28, 1903 – February 8, 1957) was a Hungarian-American mathematician, physicist, computer scientist, engineer and polymath. He was regarded as having perhaps the widest c ...
is an important early work in the development of
quantum theory.
Publication history
The book was originally published in German in 1932 by
Julius Springer
Julius Springer (10 May 1817 – 17 April 1877) was a German publisher who founded the academic publishing house Springer Science+Business Media (formerly known as Springer-Verlag).
Springer-Verlag
In 1842, Springer founded the retail bookshop Sp ...
, under the title .
An English translation by
Robert T. Beyer was published in 1955 by
Princeton University Press
Princeton University Press is an independent publisher with close connections to Princeton University. Its mission is to disseminate scholarship within academia and society at large.
The press was founded by Whitney Darrow, with the financial ...
.
A Russian translation, edited by
N. Bogolyubov, was published by
Nauka in 1964.
A new English edition, edited by Nicholas A. Wheeler, was published in 2018 by
Princeton University Press
Princeton University Press is an independent publisher with close connections to Princeton University. Its mission is to disseminate scholarship within academia and society at large.
The press was founded by Whitney Darrow, with the financial ...
.
Significance
The book mainly summarizes results that von Neumann had published in earlier papers.
Its main significance may be its argument against the idea of
hidden variables, on
thermodynamic
Thermodynamics is a branch of physics that deals with heat, work, and temperature, and their relation to energy, entropy, and the physical properties of matter and radiation. The behavior of these quantities is governed by the four laws of ...
grounds.
See also
*
Mathematical formulation of quantum mechanics
The mathematical formulations of quantum mechanics are those mathematical formalisms that permit a rigorous description of quantum mechanics. This mathematical formalism uses mainly a part of functional analysis, especially Hilbert spaces, which ...
* ''
Quantum Theory: Concepts and Methods''
References
External links
{{wikiquote
Full online textof the 1932 German edition (facsimile) at the
University of Göttingen
The University of Göttingen, officially the Georg August University of Göttingen, (german: Georg-August-Universität Göttingen, known informally as Georgia Augusta) is a public research university in the city of Göttingen, Germany. Founded ...
.
1932 non-fiction books
Mathematics books
Physics textbooks
Quantum mechanics