Related papers: The quantum challenge on mesoscopic level
This is a review-essay on ``Speakable and Unspeakable in Quantum Mechanics'' by John Bell and ``The Undivided Universe: An Ontological Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics'' by David Bohm and Basil Hiley. The views of these authors…
Quantum logic was introduced in 1936 by Garrett Birkhoff and John von Neumann as a framework for capturing the logical peculiarities of quantum observables. It generalizes, and on 1-dimensional Hilbert space coincides with, Boolean…
We begin by discussing ``What exists?'', i.e. ontology, in Classical Physics which provided a description of physical phenomena at the macroscopic level. The microworld however necessitates a introduction of Quantum ideas for its…
The spectacular successes of quantum physics have made it a commonplace to assert that we live in a quantum world. This idea seems to imply a kind of "quantum fundamentalism" according to which everything in the universe (if not the…
Using the relation proposed by Weinberg in 1972, combining quantum and cosmological parameters, we prove that the self gravitational potential energy of any fundamental particle is a quantum, with physical properties independent of the mass…
We recall Dirac's early proposals to develop a description of quantum phenomena in terms of a non-commutative algebra in which he suggested a way to construct what he called `quantum trajectories'. Generalising these ideas, we show how they…
Since its inception Bohmian mechanics has been generally regarded as a hidden-variable theory aimed at providing an objective description of quantum phenomena. To date, this rather narrow conception of Bohm's proposal has caused it more…
The interpretation of quantum mechanics has been a problem since its founding days. A large contribution to the discussion of possible interpretations of quantum mechanics is given by the so-called impossibility proofs for hidden variable…
Quantum theory is incredibly successful, explaining the microscopic world with great accuracy, from the behaviour of subatomic particles to chemical reactions to solid-state electronics. There is not a single experimental finding…
If the history of science has taught us anything, it's that persistence and creativity makes the once impossible possible. It has long been thought experimental tests of quantum gravity are impossible. But during the last decade, several…
The possibility to test quantum measurement theories is discussed in the more phenomenological framework of the quantum nondemolition theory. A simple test of the hypothesis of the state vector collapse is proposed by looking for deviations…
Quantum mechanics has maintained over the years the reputation of being "the most obscure theory." It works perfectly well, but nobody seems to know why. It has been argued that the difficulty in understanding quantum theory is our failed…
One of the great challenges for 21st century physics is to quantize gravity and generate a theory that will unify gravity with the other three fundamental forces of nature. This paper takes the (heretical) point of view that gravity may be…
This is the introduction to the section on Quantum Mechanics in the centennial collection of noteworthy articles appearing in The Physical Review and Physical Review Letters through 1983, since it all began in 1893. The selections for this…
Some solutions describing vacuum decay exhibit a catastrophic instability. This, so-called negative mode problem in quantum tunneling with gravity, was discovered 34 years ago and in spite of the fact that in these years many different…
Quantum mechanics marks a radical departure from the classical understanding of Nature, fostering an inherent randomness which forbids a deterministic description; yet the most fundamental departure arises from something different. As shown…
Quantum mechanics is derived from the principle that the universe contain as much variety as possible, in the sense of maximizing the distinctiveness of each subsystem. The quantum state of a microscopic system is defined to correspond to…
J.E. Hirsch notes in the recent paper arXiv: 0908.409 that the azimuthal quantum force, introduced ten years ago, would violate the principle of angular momentum conservation. It is specified in the present work that the essence and the…
In two articles, the authors claim that the Heisenberg uncertainty principle limits the precision of simultaneous measurements of the position and velocity of a particle and refer to experimental evidence that supports their claim. It is…
Mermin's "shut up and calculate!" somehow summarizes the most widely accepted view on quantum mechanics. This conception has led to a rather constraining way to think and understand the quantum world. Nonetheless, a closer look at the…