Robert E French
Robert E. French | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | 1952 (age 73–74) Wisconsin, United States |
| Residence | Troy, MI, United States |
| Nationality | USA |
| Known for | Light, Entanglement, Emission Theory |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Philosophy of physics, foundations of Quantum Mechanics, Optics |
Robert E. French is an American philosopher of physics and a member of the John Chappell Natural Philosophy Society. He is known for his work on a physically realist interpretation of Quantum Mechanics, particularly as it applies to Optics, and for defending an Emission Theory of Light. He maintains the website Quantum Realism, through which he distributes his book and essays.
Biography
Robert E French was born in Wisconsin in 1952 and grew up in the state of Maine. He received an AB in philosophy from Dartmouth College in 1974 and a Ph.D. in philosophy in 1982 from Boston University, where his thesis advisors were Abner Shimony and Judson Webb. He has taught philosophy at a number of schools in the Detroit area, including Wayne State University, the University of Windsor, Central Michigan University and various community colleges. He has also been a research associate working on parametric down conversion in the laboratory of Ted Goodson at the University of Michigan. He has a wide range of interests but works primarily on developing a physically realist interpretation of quantum mechanics, in particular as it relates to optics. He is married to Robin Siegel and resides in Troy, Michigan.
Views and research
French advocates developing a physically realist interpretation of quantum mechanics as an alternative to the Copenhagen interpretation. Rather than treating the quantum formalism as a description of observers' knowledge or measurement outcomes, he argues that it should be understood as describing an observer-independent physical reality. In connection with this program he defends an Emission Theory of light and argues that a consistent realist account of optical phenomena requires the existence of special or preferred reference frames. His work addresses topics such as wave–particle unity, polarization, and entanglement, treating them as features of a real physical process rather than as purely statistical or epistemic phenomena.
Alongside his book, French has written shorter essays developing these themes, including "Wave Particle Unity and a Physically Realist Interpretation of Light," "Are Complex Numbers Essential to Quantum Mechanics?" and "Towards a Neo-Bohrist Model of the Atom." He collects and distributes this material through his Quantum Realism website.
Abstracts
Books
- 2016 - "A Model of the Physical World: A Speculative Essay in Natural Philosophy" — a realist model of the physical world developing a physically realist interpretation of quantum mechanics and an emission theory of light. It is available as a free download from the author's Quantum Realism website.
Media
- 2010 - [http://www.worldsci.org/videos/dimdim/event_298_dimdim.flv Polarization Entanglement
] (Video Lecture)
YouTube Videos
Talks presented in the Cosmology discussion sessions on Roger J Anderton's YouTube channel (@rogeranderton418):
- The Nature of Observations (12 July 2026)
- Back to Descartes's Theory of Vortices (1 February 2026)
- Models of Atomic Physics (12 October 2025)
- Method (17 August 2025)
- Light and Entanglement (7 July 2025)
- A Thin Shell Model of the Electric Field
External links
- Quantum Realism — Robert E. French's website, hosting his book and essays