United States
£ GBP
Investigates the tension between scientific understanding of the physical structure of the world and our common notions derived from experience, especially in relation to time and the problem that there is nothing in the models available which should prevent what happens from happening backwards. An original contribution to the subject and an accessible textbook.
Preface 1. Time-Reversal Invariance 2. Thermodynamics 3. Statistical Mechanics 4. The Reversibility Objections and the Past-Hypothesis 5. The Scope of Thermodynamics 6. The Asymmetries of Knowledge and Intervention 7. Quantum Mechanics Appendix: Gedankenexperiments with Heat Engines Index
DAVID Z ALBERT is Professor of Philosophy at Columbia University and author of Quantum Mechanics and Experience (Harvard).
Albert is perfecting a style of foundational analysis that is uniquely his own...It has a surgical precision...and it is ruthless with pretensions. The foundations of thermodynamics is a topic that has accumulated a good deal of dead wood; this is a fire that will burn and burn. - Simon W. Saunders, Oxford University "As usual with Albert's work, the exposition is brisk and to the point, and exceptionally clear...The book will be an extremely valuable contribution to the literature on the subject of philosophical issues in thermodynamics and statistical mechanics, a literature which has been thin on the ground but is now growing as it deserves to." - Lawrence Sklar, University of Michigan
