Jeffrey Bub (born 1942) is a

physicist A physicist is a scientist who specializes in the field of physics, which encompasses the interactions of matter and energy at all length and time scales in the physical universe. Physicists generally are interested in the root or ultimate caus ...

and philosopher of physics, and

Distinguished Professor Distinguished Professor is an academic title given to some top tenured professors in a university, school, or department. Some distinguished professors may have endowed chairs. In the United States Often specific to one institution, titles such ...

in the Department of Philosophy, the Joint Center for Quantum Information and Computer Science, and the Institute for Physical Science and Technology at the

University of Maryland, College Park The University of Maryland, College Park (University of Maryland, UMD, or simply Maryland) is a public land-grant research university in College Park, Maryland. Founded in 1856, UMD is the flagship institution of the University System of Mary ...

. He obtained his bachelor's degree in pure mathematics and physics from the

University of Cape Town The University of Cape Town (UCT) ( af, Universiteit van Kaapstad, xh, Yunibesithi ya yaseKapa) is a public research university in Cape Town, South Africa. Established in 1829 as the South African College, it was granted full university statu ...

. A scholarship allowed him to work at

Birkbeck College Birkbeck, University of London (formally Birkbeck College, University of London), is a public university, public research university, located in Bloomsbury, London, England, and a constituent college, member institution of the federal Universit ...

with

David Bohm David Joseph Bohm (; 20 December 1917 – 27 October 1992) was an American-Brazilian-British scientist who has been described as one of the most significant theoretical physicists of the 20th centuryPeat 1997, pp. 316-317 and who contributed u ...

who had profound intellectual influence on his work. Bub obtained his PhD in Mathematical Physics from

London University The University of London (UoL; abbreviated as Lond or more rarely Londin in post-nominals) is a federal public research university located in London, England, United Kingdom. The university was established by royal charter in 1836 as a degree- ...

in 1966. Before taking up his position as professor at the University of Maryland in 1986, he worked at the

University of Minnesota The University of Minnesota, formally the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, (UMN Twin Cities, the U of M, or Minnesota) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in the Minneapolis–Saint Paul, Tw ...

Yale University Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the wo ...

Tel Aviv University Tel Aviv University (TAU) ( he, אוּנִיבֶרְסִיטַת תֵּל אָבִיב, ''Universitat Tel Aviv'') is a public research university in Tel Aviv, Israel. With over 30,000 students, it is the largest university in the country. Locate ...

, and the

University of Western Ontario The University of Western Ontario (UWO), also known as Western University or Western, is a Public university, public research university in London, Ontario, London, Ontario, Canada. The main campus is located on of land, surrounded by resident ...

. He has been visiting professor at

Princeton University Princeton University is a private university, private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial Colleges, fourth-oldest ins ...

, Yale University, the

University of California at Irvine The University of California, Irvine (UCI or UC Irvine) is a public land-grant research university in Irvine, California. One of the ten campuses of the University of California system, UCI offers 87 undergraduate degrees and 129 graduate and pr ...

, the CPNSS at the

London School of Economics , mottoeng = To understand the causes of things , established = , type = Public research university , endowment = £240.8 million (2021) , budget = £391.1 millio ...

, the

University of California at San Diego The University of California, San Diego (UC San Diego or colloquially, UCSD) is a public land-grant research university in San Diego, California. Established in 1960 near the pre-existing Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UC San Diego is t ...

, the

Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics (PI, Perimeter, PITP) is an independent research centre in foundational theoretical physics located in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. It was founded in 1999. The institute's founding and major benefactor i ...

, and the Institute for Quantum Optics and Quantum Information at the

University of Vienna The University of Vienna (german: Universität Wien) is a public research university located in Vienna, Austria. It was founded by Duke Rudolph IV in 1365 and is the oldest university in the German-speaking world. With its long and rich histor ...

.CV
at John Templeton Foundation (downloaded February 23, 2012) His main research interests relate to quantum foundations,

quantum information Quantum information is the information of the state of a quantum system. It is the basic entity of study in quantum information theory, and can be manipulated using quantum information processing techniques. Quantum information refers to both th ...

quantum computation Quantum computing is a type of computation whose operations can harness the phenomena of quantum mechanics, such as superposition, interference, and entanglement. Devices that perform quantum computations are known as quantum computers. Though ...

, and

quantum cryptography Quantum cryptography is the science of exploiting quantum mechanical properties to perform cryptographic tasks. The best known example of quantum cryptography is quantum key distribution which offers an information-theoretically secure solution ...

. In 1998, his book ''Interpreting the Quantum World'' won the

Lakatos Award The Lakatos Award is given annually for an outstanding contribution to the philosophy of science, widely interpreted. The contribution must be in the form of a monograph, co-authored or single-authored, and published in English during the previo ...

. In 2005 he received the University of Maryland's ''Kirwan Faculty Research and Scholarship Prize'' for his work in the area of quantum foundations and quantum information. Bub has published over 100 scientific articles; the first of these are three articles authored together with David Bohm and published in 1966 and 1968. In 2010, he published an argument that the famous work of

John Stewart Bell John Stewart Bell FRS (28 July 1928 – 1 October 1990) was a physicist from Northern Ireland and the originator of Bell's theorem, an important theorem in quantum physics regarding hidden-variable theories. In 2022, the Nobel Prize in Phy ...

(and, thus,

Grete Hermann Grete Hermann (2 March 1901 – 15 April 1984) was a Germans, German mathematician and philosopher noted for her work in mathematics, physics, philosophy and education. She is noted for her early philosophical work on the foundations of quantum m ...

) had misconstrued von Neumann's proof of the impossibility of hidden variables in quantum mechanics. The validity of Bub's argument is, in turn, disputed.

Publications

;Books: *Jeffrey Bub
''Bananaworld: Quantum Mechanics for Primates''
Oxford University Press, 2016, *Jeffrey Bub: ''Interpreting the Quantum World'', Cambridge University Press, 1997, (revised paperback edition, 1999) �
Review
by Kent A. Peacock *Jeffrey Bub: ''The Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics (The Western Ontario Series in Philosophy of Science)'', Springer, 1974, *Jeffrey Bub: ;Other: *William Demopoulos and Itamar Pitowsky (eds.): ''Physical Theory and its Interpretation: Essays in Honor of Jeffrey Bub'', Springer, 2006,

References

External links

CV at John Templeton Foundation

an

Department of Philosophy, University of Maryland
Works by Jeffrey Bub, philpapers.org
*Jeffrey Bub, Rob Clifton
''A uniqueness theorem for “No collapse” interpretations of quantum mechanics''
Stud. Hist. Mod. Phys., vol. 27, no. 2, pp. 181–219, 1996
Lectures by Jeffrey Bub
PIRSA, Perimeter Institute {{DEFAULTSORT:Bub, Jeffrey 1942 births 21st-century American physicists Philosophers of science Living people 20th-century American philosophers University of Maryland, College Park faculty Lakatos Award winners