Related papers: The Rise of Quantum Mechanics
All investigators working on the foundations of quantum mechanics agree that the theory has profoundly modified our conception of reality. But there ends the consensus. The unproblematic formalism of the theory gives rise to a number of…
We present an alternative to the Copenhagen interpretation of the formalism of nonrelativistic quantum mechanics. The basic difference is that the new interpretation is formulated in the language of epistemological realism. It involves a…
This paper deals with the ways that the issue of completing quantum mechanics was brought into laboratories and became a topic in mainstream quantum optics. It focuses on the period between 1965, when Bell published what now we call Bell's…
During the past decades, quantum mechanical methods have undergone an amazing transition from pioneering investigations of experts into a wide range of practical applications, made by a vast community of researchers. First principles…
The different interpretations of quantum mechanics yield the same experimental results, which may give the impression that the question of what interpretation is the true one, is a philosophical question, not a scientific one. But in this…
The main ideas behind developments in the theory and technology of quantum computation were formulated in the late 1970s and early 1980s by two physicists in the West and a mathematician in the former Soviet Union. It is not generally known…
Probabilistic description of results of measurements and its consequences for understanding quantum mechanics are discussed. It is shown that the basic mathematical structure of quantum mechanics like the probability amplitude, Born rule,…
This paper discusses the relation between the decoherent histories approach to quantum mechanics that is based on coarse-grained decoherent histories of a closed system, and the approximate quantum mechanics of measured subsystems, as in…
Some of the so-called imponderables and counterintuitive puzzles associated with the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics appear to have alternate, parallel explanations in terms of nonlinear dynamics and chaos. These include the…
The principle goal of computational mechanics is to define pattern and structure so that the organization of complex systems can be detected and quantified. Computational mechanics developed from efforts in the 1970s and early 1980s to…
To understand the foundations of quantum mechanics, we have to think carefully about how theoretical concepts are rooted in -- and limited by -- the nature of experience, as Bohr attempted to show. Geometrical pictures of physical phenomena…
The author recalls general tendencies of the "mathematization" of the sciences and derives challenges and tentative obstructions for a successful merger of mathematics and physics on fancied steps towards "Quantum Gravity". This is an…
A modified version of relational quantum mechanics is developed based on the three following ideas. An observer can develop an internally consistent description of the universe but it will, of necessity, differ in particulars from the…
Thermodynamics originated in the need to understand novel technologies developed by the Industrial Revolution. However, over the centuries the description of engines, refrigerators, thermal accelerators, and heaters has become so abstract…
Since the beginning of the efforts to produce and understand quark matter large changes developed in the ideas of description of this matter. In the present paper we summarize some aspects of this development.
We first review the historical developments, both in physics and in mathematics, that preceded (and in some sense provided the background of) deformation quantization. Then we describe the birth of the latter theory and its evolution in the…
This introductory text on the basics of quantum mechanics is intended to serve as a kind of travel guide through the quantum world. It starts by asking whether quantum physics is important, or weird, or incomprehensible. It explains why…
This is a very gentle introductory course on quantum mechanics aimed at the first years of the undergraduate level. The basic concepts are introduced, with many applications and illustrations. Contains 12 short chapters of equal length,…
These are author's recollections of informal discussions on foundations of quantum mechanics, which happened in his presence in 1970-80s
The existence of small amounts of advanced radiation, or a tilt in the arrow of time, makes the basic equations of physics mixed-type functional differential equations. The novel features of such equations point to a microphysical structure…