Related papers: Delirium Quantum
I discuss a set of strong, but probabilistically intelligible, axioms from which one can {\em almost} derive the appratus of finite dimensional quantum theory. Stated informally, these require that systems appear completely classical as…
Effective classicality of a property of a quantum system can be defined using redundancy of its record in the environment. This allows quantum physics to approximate the situation encountered in the classical world: The information about a…
I distinguish two senses in which one can take a given physical theory to be `complete'. On the first, a complete physical theory is one that, in principle, completely describes physical reality. On the second, a complete physical theory is…
In this thesis I present a short review of ideas in quantum information theory. The first chapter contains introductory material, sketching the central ideas of probability and information theory. Quantum mechanics is presented at the level…
How should we interpret physical theories, and especially quantum theory, if we drop the assumption that we should treat it as an exact description of the whole Universe? I expound and develop the claim that physics is about the study of…
In physics, there is the prevailing intuition that we are part of a unique external world, and that the goal of physics is to understand and describe this world. This assumption of the fundamentality of objective reality is often seen as a…
We can recognize two modes in which 'quantum appears' in macro domains: (i) a 'micro-physical appearance', where quantum laws are assumed to be universal and they are transferred from the micro to the macro level if suitable 'quantum…
There is a significant body of literature, which includes Itamar Pitowksy's "Betting on Outcomes of Measurements," that sheds light on the structure of quantum mechanics, and the ways in which it differs from classical mechanics, by casting…
If a one-phrase summary of the subject of this thesis were required, it would be something like: miscellaneous large (but finite) dimensional phenomena in quantum information theory. That said, it could nonetheless be helpful to briefly…
Quantum mechanics has enjoyed a multitude of successes since its formulation in the early twentieth century. At the same time, it has generated puzzles that persist to this day. These puzzles have inspired a large literature in physics and…
One would not think that thought experiments could matter to nature, for they are a humble human device. Yet quantum mechanics very naturally frames thought experiments (as distinct from precisely defining what exists). They exemplify the…
According to quantum theory, randomness is a fundamental property of the universe yet classical physics is mostly deterministic. In this article I show that it is possible for deterministic systems to arise from random ones and discuss the…
We perform an experimental test where we directly observe light-induced electron transitions with a macroscopic spatial discontinuity. The effect is related to the fundamental indivisibility of macroscopic orbit-like quantum states…
While complex numbers are essential in mathematics, they are not needed to describe physical experiments, expressed in terms of probabilities, hence real numbers. Physics however aims to explain, rather than describe, experiments through…
The key observation about quantum reality is that it often appears as if, at some moment, the probability of a quantum event becomes a definite outcome for us. A careful analysis suggests, however, that what we perceive as a definite state…
We take our world to be an objective reality, but is it? The assumption that the physical world exists in and of itself has struggled to assimilate the findings of modern physics for some time now. For example, an objective space and time…
What is the quantum state of the universe? Although there have been several interesting suggestions, the question remains open. In this paper, I consider a natural choice for the universal quantum state arising from the Past Hypothesis, a…
In this work, we present a logical formalism for reasoning about quantum systems in finite dimension. Contrary to the usual approach in quantum logic, our formalism is based classical first-order logic, which allows us to use the tools of…
Several finite dimensional quasi-probability representations of quantum states have been proposed to study various problems in quantum information theory and quantum foundations. These representations are often defined only on restricted…
It is argued that although quantum theory isn't an absolutely deterministic theory, it is partially deterministic. The approach followed here is in the framework of the standard (Copenhagen interpretation of) quantum mechanics without any…