Department of Philosophy: People: Core Faculty: Jeffrey Bub

Jeffrey Bub (PhD, London) is a Distinguished University Professor and a philosopher of physics with a special interest in the conceptual foundations of quantum theory. His book Interpreting the Quantum World (Cambridge University Press, 1997; revised paperback edition, 1999), won the prestigious Lakatos Award in 1998 for providing a unified reconstruction and systematic assessment of quantum mechanics. He has held numerous visiting positions, most recently (in 2006) at the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics in Waterloo, Canada, and a 'poste rouge' at the Institut d'Histoire et de Philosophie des Sciences et des Techniques in Paris. His current research is focused on quantum information and computation. He was awarded the Kirwan Faculty Research and Scholarship Prize in 2005 for his work in this area.

Email: jbub@umd.edu

Personal Home Page

Representative Publications

Interpreting the Quantum World (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997). Winner of the Lakatos Award, 1998.

The Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics (Dordrecht: Reidel, 1974).

'Quantum Information and Quantum Computing,' forthcoming in John Earman and Jeremy Butterfield (eds.), Handbook of Philosophy of Physics (North-Holland, 2006), 103 pp.

'Quantum Mechanics is About Quantum Information,' Foundations of Physics 35, 541 - 560 (2005).

'Why the Quantum?' Studies in the History and Philosophy of Modern Physics 35, 241 - 266 (2004).

'Characterizing Quantum Theory in Terms of Information-Theoretic Constraints,' Foundations of Physics 33, 1561 - 1591 (2003). (Co-authored with Rob Clifton and Hans Halvorson.)

'The Quantum Bit Commitment Theorem,' Foundations of Physics 31, 735 - 756 (2001).

'Secure Key Distribution via Pre- and Postselected Quantum States,' Physical Review A 63, 032309 - 032311 (2001).

'Schütte's Tautology and the Kochen-Specker Theorem,' Foundations of Physics 26, 787 - 806 (1996). Festschrift issue for Max Jammer's 80th birthday.

'A Uniqueness Theorem for 'No Collapse' Interpretations of Quantum Mechanics,' Studies in the History and Philosophy of Physics 27, 181 - 219 (1996). (Co-authored with R. Clifton.)

'A Proposed Solution of the Measurement Problem in Quantum Mechanics by a Hidden Variable Theory,' Reviews of Modern Physics 38, 453 - 469 (1966). (Co-authored with D. Bohm)