Abner Eliezer Shimony (/ʃɪˈmoʊni/; March 10, 1928 – August 8, 2015) was an American physicist and philosopher. He specialized in
quantum theory and philosophy of science. As a physicist, he concentrated on the interaction between relativity theory and quantum mechanics. He authored many works and research on complementarity in quantum entanglement as well as multiparticle quantum interferometry, both relating to quantum coherence. He authored research articles and books on the foundations of quantum mechanics. He received the 1996
Lakatos Prize for his work in
philosophy of science. Shimony is also the author of Tibaldo and the Hole in the Calendar, a 1998 children's book about the calendar reform that has been translated into many languages.
After receiving his second Ph.D., Shimony interacted with both the philosophical academic world and the physics academic world. His most famous professional correspondence is with
Rudolf Carnap.[1] He taught philosophy of science at MIT from 1959 until 1968 in the school’s Department of Humanities. In 1968 he transferred to
Boston University, beginning a 26-year appointment in both the physics and philosophy departments, and was Professor Emeritus there until his death in 2015.[2] Shimony is best known for his work in developing the
CHSH inequality,[3] an empirically testable form of the
Bell inequality, also known as
Bell's theorem. He later proposed a geometric measure of
quantum entanglement and, along with
Gregg Jaeger and
Michael Horne, discovered two novel
complementarity relations involving
interferometric visibility in multiparticle quantum
interferometry.
He is also known for his inquiry into the question of the "peaceful coexistence" of
quantum mechanics and
special relativity. He wrote several books and numerous research articles on the foundations of quantum mechanics and related topics. Shimony is credited with coining the phrase "passion at a distance" to characterize the various phenomena described by quantum correlations in 1984.[4]
In 1996 he was awarded the
Lakatos Award in the philosophy of science for
the two-volume collection of papers, The Search for a Naturalistic World View, spanning his career up until 1992. He served as president of the
Philosophy of Science Association from 1995 to 1996. He died in
New Haven, Connecticut, aged 87.
1987. Edited by Abner Shimony & Debra Nails; Naturalistic Epistemology: A Symposium of Two Decades (Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science Volume 100)
ISBN90-277-2337-0
1993. Selected Papers, Search for a Naturalistic World View, Volume 1, Scientific Method and Epistemology
ISBN0-521-37352-2
1993. Selected Papers, Search for a Naturalistic World View, Volume 2, Natural Science and Metaphysics
ISBN0-521-37353-0
1977. Edited by Abner Shimony; Rudolf Carnap; Two Essays on Entropy
ISBN0-520-02715-9
1997. Edited by Robert S. Cohen, Michael Horne & John Stachel; Experimental Metaphysics: Quantum Mechanical Studies for Abner Shimony, Volume 1 (Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science Volume 193)
ISBN978-0-7923-4452-0
1997. Edited by Robert S. Cohen, Michael Horne & John Stachel; Potentiality, Entanglement and Passion-at-a-Distance: Quantum Mechanical Studies for Abner Shimony, Volume 2 (Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science Volume 194)
ISBN0-7923-4453-7
1997. Edited by Malcolm Longair; Roger Penrose with Abner Shimony, Nancy Cartwright and Stephen Hawking; The Large, the Small and the Human Mind
ISBN0-521-56330-5
2006. Edited by Abner Shimony; Martin Eger; Science, Understanding, and Justice: Philosophical Essays
ISBN0-8126-9461-9
2009. Edited by Wayne C. Myrvold & Joy Christian; Quantum Reality, Relativistic Causality, and Closing the Epistemic Circle: Essays in Honour of Abner Shimony
ISBN978-1-4020-9106-3
^Shimony, Abner.
"Correspondence between Shimony and Carnap"(PDF). Abner Shimony's Papers. Special Collections Department, University of Pittsburgh. Retrieved September 19, 2013.
^Howard, Don (2009), Myrvold, Wayne C.; Christian, Joy (eds.),
"Passion at a Distance", Quantum Reality, Relativistic Causality, and Closing the Epistemic Circle: Essays in Honour of Abner Shimony, The Western Ontario Series in Philosophy of Science, vol. 73, Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands, pp. 3–11,
Bibcode:
2009qrrc.book....3H,
doi:
10.1007/978-1-4020-9107-0_1,
ISBN978-1-4020-9107-0, retrieved February 28, 2022
Shimony's last presentation, "Reminiscences", at the Boston Colloquium in the Philosophy of Science, at their 50th anniversary celebration, October 22, 2010