Related papers: Is a system's wave function in one-to-one correspo…
We draw attention to an elementary flaw in a recently proposed experiment to measure the wave function of a single quantum system.
An analysis has been performed of the theories and postulates advanced by von Neumann, London and Bauer, and Wigner, concerning the role that consciousness might play in the collapse of the wave function, which has become known as the…
We present a new interpretation of the terms superposition, entanglement, and measurement that appear in quantum mechanics. We hypothesize that the structure of the wave function for a quantum system at the sub-Planck scale has a…
Quantum Mechanics, almost 80 years after its arrival, is a well established and experimentally not falsified theory. It has predicted and explained a whole series of natural phenomena of a very delicate nature. But its interpretation has…
Measurement in quantum mechanics is generally described as an irreversible process that perturbs the wavefunction describing a quantum system. In this work we establish a formal connection between the measurement description within the…
The postulate of the collapse of the wave function stands between the microscopic, quantum world, and the macroscopic world. Because of this intermediate position, the collapse process cannot be examined with the formalism of the quantum…
This paper critically considers the main interpretations of the wave function and offers an interpretation in which wave function is a consequence of subquantum processes taking place at the level of the organization of matter which…
As a counterexample to $\psi$-ontology theorems we consider a $\psi$-epistemic interpretation of the wave function in the configuration space representation with a configuration space trajectory defining the ontology. This shows that…
In QBism the wave function does not represent an element of physical reality external to the agent, but represent an agent's personal probability assignments, reflecting his subjective degrees of belief about the future content of his…
A goal of most interpretations of quantum mechanics is to avoid the apparent intrusion of the observer into the measurement process. Such intrusion is usually seen to arise because observation somehow selects a single actuality from among…
Central to quantum theory, the wavefunction is the complex distribution used to completely describe a quantum system. Despite its fundamental role, it is typically introduced as an abstract element of the theory with no explicit definition.…
My view on the meaning of the quantum wave function and its connection to protective measurements is described. The wave function and only the wave function is the ontology of the quantum theory. Protective measurements support this view…
What is the quantum system? Consider the wavefunction of the electron, what we call single particle wave-function and assume that it contains N wave packets. If we pass all the wave packets through an electric field, all are deflected, as…
The traditional analysis of the basic version of the double-slit experiment leads to the conclusion that wave-particle duality is a fundamental fact of nature. However, such a conclusion means to imply that we are not only required to have…
This paper focuses on a constructive treatment of the mathematical formalism of quantum theory and a possible role of constructivist philosophy in resolving the foundational problems of quantum mechanics, particularly, the controversy over…
We briefly review a number of major features of the approach to quantum measurement theory based on environment-induced decoherence of the measuring apparatus, and summarize our observations in the form of a couple of general principles…
The physical states of matter and fields are represented in the quantum theory with complex valued wavefunctions, or more generally by quantum states in an abstract linear vector space. Determining the physical nature of wavefunctions…
We use a simple example to illustrate why it is not possible to consider that a measurement reveals an underlying objective reality of a property of a quantum system, that continues the same after the measurement is performed. This kind of…
We investigate the meaning of the wave function by analyzing the mass and charge density distribution of a quantum system. According to protective measurement, a charged quantum system has mass and charge density proportional to the modulus…
The best mathematical arguments against a realistic interpretation of quantum mechanics - that gives definite but partially unknown values to all observables - are analysed and shown to be based on reasoning that is not compelling. This…