FOM: Re: Re: Re: FoM: Quantum Logic

[Peter Apostoli]

Dear FOM,

I have a question about the sociology of our field. I am not sure its a good
question, but someone mentioned Quantum Logic, so I started freely
associating. QL is an old field, started in the 30's by pure mathematicians,
and picked up at a later date by philosophers. I am told that by the 70's,
many PhD candidates in the philosophy of science were seriously considering
writing their dissertation on this then "trendy" subject. Most who didn't
now feel relieved by their choice, and I think its safe to say that in half
a century QL made relatively little progress either scientifically or
philosophically. I am not even sure any philosophers managed to compose
careers based upon the early promise of QL.

But now compare the ingnomious fate of QL with Quantum Computation. QC was
started perhaps just over one or two decades ago, and it has already lead to
a convergence of fields formerly unthinkable: computer science, experimental
and theoretical physics, chemistry, mathematics, engineering and materials
science. QC is not just a trendy subject for philosophy PhD candidates to
talk about in artificially deepened voices; its an emerging area of 21st
century science featuring an degree of unification uparalleled in the recent
history of science. Information is now understood as a fundamental physical
magnitude (along with, e.g., force, mass, etc), a revolutioary development.
Note that this point holds even if it is admitted that no one will ever
build a quantum computer.

This leads to a question for future historians of science: how do we account
for the stunning success of QC relative to QL? Of course the simple but
unhelpful answer is that QC is a good idea but QL is a bad idea. But my
question is about the sociology of the academy: Is it true that the main
developers of QC (physicists and enginneers) were simply *more capable*, and
in particular more capable of "rationalizing" or "logicizing" physics, than
the pure mathematicians and philosophers who formerly supported QL?

To put it bluntly, it seems to me that the physicists have eaten the
philospher of sciences' lunch. Is this fair?

Regards,

Peter A.