 | |
| Discipline | Quantum physics |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Edited by | Abner Shimony and others |
| Publication details | |
| History | 1973–1984 |
| Publisher | L'Institut de la Méthode of the Association Ferdinand Gonseth[1] (Switzerland) |
| Frequency | Irregular |
| Standard abbreviations | |
| ISO 4 | Epistemol. Lett. |
| Indexing | |
| OCLC no. | 52305299 |
Epistemological Letters (French: Lettres Épistémologiques) was a hand-typed, mimeographed "underground" newsletter about quantum physics that was distributed to a private mailing list, described by the physicist and Nobel laureate John Clauser as a "quantum subculture", between 1973 and 1984.[2][3]
Distributed by a Swiss foundation, the newsletter was created because mainstream academic journals were reluctant to publish articles about the philosophy of quantum mechanics, especially anything that implied support for ideas such as action at a distance.[4] Thirty-six or thirty-seven issues of Epistemological Letters appeared, each between four and eighty-nine pages long.[5] Several well-known scientists published their work there, including the physicist John Bell, the originator of Bell's theorem.[4] According to John Clauser, much of the early work on Bell's theorem was published only in Epistemological Letters.[2][6]
- ^ Whitaker, Andrew (2012). The New Quantum Age: From Bell's Theorem to Quantum Computation and Teleportation. Oxford: Oxford University Press. p. 145.
- ^ a b Clauser, John F. (2002). "Early History of Bell's Theorem", in R. A. Bertlmann and A. Zeilinger (eds.). Quantum (Un)speakables: From Bell to Quantum Information. Springer, p. 62.
- ^ For 1973–1984, see "Epistemological letters", Abe Books (archived), and "Epistemological letters", Amazon. Andrew Whitaker gives the dates as 1974–1984; see Whitaker 2012, p. 145.
- ^ a b Kaiser, David (2011). How the Hippies Saved Physics: Science, Counterculture, and the Quantum Revival. New York and London: W. W. Norton & Company, pp. 121–122; Kaiser, David (2010). "How the Hippies Saved Physics", Cambridge Science Festival, from 00:37:35.
- ^ For 36 issues, see "Epistemological letters", Abe Books; for 37 issues and number of pages, see Whitaker 2012, p. 145.
- ^ Murgueitio Ramírez, Sebastián (7 June 2022). "On How Epistemological Letters Changed The Foundations of Physics". In Freire, Olival (ed.). The Oxford Handbook of the History of Quantum Interpretations. Oxford University Press. pp. 755–775. ISBN 9780198844495.