English

An order-theoretic quantification of contextuality

Quantum Physics 2014-09-30 v1 Mathematical Physics math.MP

Abstract

In this essay, I develop order-theoretic notions of determinism and contextuality on domains and topoi. In the process, I develop a method for quantifying contextuality and show that the order-theoretic sense of contextuality is analogous to the sense embodied in the topos-theoretic statement of the Kochen-Specker theorem. Additionally, I argue that this leads to a relation between the entropy associated with measurements on quantum systems and the second law of thermodynamics. The idea that the second law has its origin in the ordering of quantum states and processes dates to at least 1958 and possibly earlier. The suggestion that the mechanism behind this relation is contextuality, is made here for the first time.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1409.6643,
  title  = {An order-theoretic quantification of contextuality},
  author = {Ian T. Durham},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1409.6643},
  year   = {2014}
}

Comments

Published version; 17 pages, 1 figure; published under title "Quantifying Contextuality" which duplicates another title on the arXiv by different authors

R2 v1 2026-06-22T06:03:48.869Z