Preface to the second edition

Summary

My aims in preparing this second edition have been to simplify and clarify the discussion, wherever this could be done without diluting the content, and to update the text in the light of developments during the last 17 years. The discussion of non-locality and particularly the Bell inequalities in Chapter 3 is an example of both of these. The proof of Bell's theorem has been considerably simplified, without, I believe, damaging its validity, and reference is made to a number of important experiments performed during the last decade of the twentieth century. I am grateful to Lev Vaidman for drawing my attention to the unfairness of some of my criticisms of the ‘many worlds’ interpretation, and to him and Simon Saunders for their attempts to lead me to an understanding of how the problem of probabilities is addressed in this context. Chapter 6 has been largely rewritten in the light of these, but I am sure that neither of the above will wholeheartedly agree with my conclusions.

Chapter 7 has been revised to include an account of the influential spontaneous-collapse model developed by G. C. Ghiradi, A. Rimini and T. Weber. Significant recent experimental work in this area is also reviewed. There has been considerable progress on the understanding of irreversibility, which is discussed in Chapters 8, 9 and 10. Chapter 9, which emphasised ideas current in the 1980s, has been left largely alone, but the new Chapter 10 deals with developments since then.