Humanities Core Course                        Spring 2013                        Instructor: Bencivenga

 

READING QUESTIONS

 

 

Heisenberg

 

  1. In what ways “the attempt to describe atomic events in the traditional terms of physics led to contradictions” (p. 9)?
  2. How different is the notion of probability relevant to quantum mechanics from earlier notions (see pp. 14-15, p. 20)?
  3. What is the principle of indeterminacy? What is Bohr’s concept of complementarity? (See pp. 16-17.)
  4. What is the initial paradox of the Copenhagen interpretation? (See pp. 18ff.)
  5. What “famous question” does Heisenberg consider on p. 24? How does he answer it?
  6. Where do things “happen” for classical physics, and for quantum physics? (See pp. 26, 28-29.)
  7. Why does Heisenberg say that “atomic physics has turned science away from the materialistic trend it had during the nineteenth century” (p. 33)?
  8. What three fundamental ideas of philosophy are expressed in Thales’ view, according to Nietzsche? (See pp. 33-34.)
  9. What parallel does Heisenberg find between Anaximander’s view and what he (Heisenberg) regards as the correct contemporary view? (See pp. 34-36.)
  10. What is the “tension between the One and the Many” on p. 36?
  11. Why is it that “the word ‘atom’ in modern physics and chemistry was referred to the wrong object” (p. 43)?
  12. In what way is the modern elementary particle generalizing on the ancient conception of the atom? (See pp. 43-44.)
  13. What point is Heisenberg making with the quote from Faust on pp. 144-45? How far does he take this point to apply to science?
  14. What are some features of how physicists have come to speak after the advent of quantum mechanics? (See p. 153.)
  15. How does Heisenberg describe the interplay of natural and technical sciences on pp. 162ff?
  16. What new problems has the invention of nuclear weapons raised for scientists? (See p. 166.)
  17. What frame was developed by nineteenth-century science? (See p. 171.) How was this frame dissolved? (See pp. 172ff.)
  18. In what way has modern physics “perhaps opened the door to a wider outlook on the relation between the human mind and reality” (p. 176)?

 

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

 

Heisenberg

 

  1. Comment on Heisenberg’s statement that “asking the right question is frequently more than halfway to the solution of the problem” (p. 9).
  2. Do you think that nature could just be absurd, as Heisenberg reports fearing on p. 16? Or that there is no good argument why it should be easy to understand? (See pp. 46-47.)
  3. Do you find it easy to accept that nature be discontinuous?
  4. What different notions of objectivity are suggested on pp. 29-30?
  5. Comment on Bohr’s and Heisenberg’s statements that “in the drama of existence we are ourselves both players and spectators. It is understandable that in our scientific relation to nature our own activity becomes very important when we have to deal with parts of nature into which we can penetrate only by using the most elaborate tools” (p. 32).
  6. Comment on Heisenberg’s analogy that “both tragedy and comedy can be written by using the same letters of the alphabet” (p. 41).
  7. How do you see a world whose primary substance is energy? (See pp. 44-45.) or in which “all things are numbers” (p. 45)?
  8. What is a fundamental difference between ancient Greek views of the universe and contemporary science? And what does the similarity between those views and contemporary ones suggest?
  9. How would you behave in a situation in which “no language existed in which one could speak consistently about” it (p. 148)?
  10. How do you think an “honest declaration for peace” (p. 166) would have to be phrased?
  11. Do you believe that, as Heisenberg suggests, the quantum-theoretical revolution in thought may be less drastic in cultures other than the European one? (See p. 176.)
  12. Do you believe that modern science can induce an attitude of tolerance? (See p. 178.)