Physics and the Nature of Reality - Essays in Memory of Detlef Dürr

This volume commemorates the scientific contributions of Detlef Dürr (1951-2021) to foundational questions of physics. It presents new contributions from his former students, collaborators, and colleagues about their current research on topics inspired or influenced by Dürr. These topics are drawn from physics, mathematics, and philosophy of nature, and concern interpretations of quantum theory, new developments of Bohmian mechanics, the role of typicality, quantum physics in relativistic space-time, classical and quantum electrodynamics, and statistical mechanics. The volume thus also gives a snapshot of present research in the foundations of physics.

Angelo Bassi graduated in Physics at the University of Trieste, where in 2001 he received his PhD. He worked at the ICTP in Trieste, and later in Munich, Germany. He is now full professor at the University of Trieste. His research concerns the fundamentals of quantum mechanics. He is the author of 150 publications in international journals, invited speaker at over 70 international conferences, organizer of 30 conferences. He is the principal investigator of numerous national and international research projects. He was interviewed by New York Times Magazine with a dedicated profile (June 2020) and other national and international scientific magazines and newspapers.

Sheldon Goldstein: Born in 1947 in Augusta, Georgia, USA, Sheldon Goldstein is a Distinguished Professor of Mathematics, Physics, and Philosophy at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey. He is a mathematician and theoretical physicist and is most closely associated with the mathematical physics group in the mathematics department at Rutgers. His research has primarily been concerned with the foundations of statistical mechanics and the foundations of quantum mechanics. The latter research is more precisely focused on finding conceptually and physically clear versions of quantum mechanics, the best example of which is Bohmian mechanics. He has published more than 160 articles on these and related subjects.

Roderich Tumulka was born in 1972 in Frankfurt am Main (Germany), earned a Ph.D. in mathematics from Ludwig Maximilians University in Munich in 2001, taught at Rutgers University (USA) in 2007-2016, and has since taught at Eberhard Karls University in Tübingen (Germany). His field of research is mathematical physics, particularly the foundations of quantum mechanics, quantum field theory, and quantum statistical mechanics. He authored more than 70 articles in research journals.

Nino Zanghì: Born in 1957, Nino Zanghì obtained his Ph.D. in physics in 1987. Presently, he holds the position of Full Professor of Theoretical Physics at the University of Genoa, Italy. His scientific pursuits revolve around investigating the mathematical and conceptual foundations of statistical mechanics and quantum mechanics, specifically delving into the precise formulation of quantum mechanics known as Bohmian mechanics. More recently, his interests have expanded to encompass the fundamental principles that underlie the field of cosmology. He is the author of monographs in both Italian and English and has contributed over 100 articles to the research on these topics.