I doubt that even at the time it was formulated anyone really considered the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics to be fundamental. I would guess that even then it was looked at as a provisional point of view that was good enough to allow work to continue. Among its problems are the assumed existence of a classical world, that there are external observers (since quantum mechanics applies to the universe this is clearly a problem) and that these external observers play some sort of fundamental role in quantum mechanics. One unfortunate consequence of this is that it is easy to get the impression that there are two kinds of dynamical processes in quantum mechanics, unitary evolution and wavefunction collapse, the latter of which seems to violate the spirit of special relativity. This book provides important material that will help students avoid these misconceptions.



This book presents the consistent histories formulation of quantum mechanics. This approach has the advantage of not requiring external observers and that wavefunction collapse is seen a calculatingly tool.



It begins with an overview of many quantum mechanics concepts, most of which would be familiar to what I believe to be the intended audience, people already familiar with quantum mechanics at least at the level of a good undergraduate course. This includes things like wavefunctions, Schrodinger's equation, Dirac notation, observables and Hermitian operators, probability and more.



The concept of consistent histories is then introduced. Consistent histories are used in the book to analyze the common paradoxes of quantum mechanics such as Schrodinger's cat and the EPR paradox. In addition, some less common ones are considered. One strength of the book is that it clarifies concepts with toy models (usually quantum systems with a finite number of states) that simplify the physics as much as possible. There is also some material that I do not recall seeing elsewhere, such as a nice discussion of counterfactual arguments. One quibble is that I would have like to have seen an expanded discussion of decoherence, but he may have omitted that because such discussions appear elsewhere.



What is the audience? It won't help you calculate scattering cross sections or the energy levels of a hydrogen atom, but it should help you understand the concepts of quantum mechanics better.

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